China’s largest oil company believes domestic oil demand growth is likely to slow down significantly this year.
According to the latest annual report published by a research institute affiliated with China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC), the country’s oil demand may rise by just 2.4% in 2020. This would mark a decline of more than 50% on the 2019 figure of 5.2%, and it would be the lowest number recorded since the outbreak of the Great Recession in 2008.
CNPC’s Economics & Technology Research Institute said it had based its forecast on the expectation that the Chinese economy was likely to grow no more than 6% this year, even as the automobile market remained relatively weak. Under these circumstances, the signing of a trade deal between Beijing and Washington will not have much impact on oil demand, it argued.
Instead, the institute said, the aftershocks of the trade dispute are likely to linger for some time. “Negative impacts on the economy from U.S.-China trade frictions won’t be rooted out in the short term,” it asserted.