Electric vehicles displaced 1.5 million barrels of oil a day in China during the second quarter of the year, nearly doubling expectations, according to the International Energy Agency.
The growth suggests that the use of electric cars is accelerating as the country — which dominates global manufacturing of battery-powered vehicles — faces oil supply disruptions as the U.S.-led war against Iran approaches the six-month mark, the Paris-based agency said in its latest oil market report.
IEA determined that the impacts of the war and the near-total closure of the Strait of Hormuz, through which the bulk of China’s oil supply passes, would speed the structural decline in demand for gasoline and diesel in a country that releases the world’s largest amount of greenhouse gas emissions. The agency projects that Chinese demand would fall 4 percent, or 280,000 barrels a day, from 2025 to 2027.
“As the experience of the Covid-19 pandemic showed, large crisis-driven shifts can be slow to fade, leaving persistent impacts on oil demand and we expect that much of the lost ground will not be recovered,” the report states.
