Oil continues to be a vital commodity in the modern world, having traditionally played a major part in the global industrial, home, and power sectors.
While many economies are still recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic, one factor is slowing global oil consumption: the electrification of the automotive sector. According to Reuters, global oil inventories rose by 23.9 million barrels (mb) through most of the first half of 2024.
As of June 2024, oil demand is expected to fall by 960,000 barrels per day in 2024. This is attributed to a decline in oil supply in Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries, slowing economic activity in China and the United States, and increased adoption of clean energy technologies. Taking into account improvements in energy efficiency, this modest growth is expected to continue through 2025.
In this article, look at the top 5 biggest oil consumers countries in the world.
5. Russia
- Barrels consumed per day in 2023 (in thousands): 3,635
- Barrels consumed per day in 2022 (in thousands): 3,615
- Year-over-year change in consumption: 0.6D
Russia has the appetite to consume. Not much change in the 2022-2023 period.
Russia’s oil market is hurting due to the European Union’s ban on Russian diesel and heating oil. As the oil market is also trending downward due to reduced demand from OPEC, Russia’s total fossil fuel revenues fell 3% in July 2024. This is due to exports falling 9% in volume terms.
4. Saudi Arabia
- Barrels consumed per day in 2023 (in thousands): 4,052
- Barrels consumed per day in 2022 (in thousands): 3,854
- Change in consumption compared to previous year: 5.1D
Saudi Arabia is a huge consumer of oil, so why wouldn’t they? The Shoaiba Power Plant is the largest fossil fuel-fired power plant in the country, with a capacity to produce 200,000 barrels of oil per day. However, despite the country’s very high oil production capacity (13.2% share of total world oil production) and being second in oil production, consumption is also very high, and the country’s energy and water are the major sources of energy in the rest of the world. Although oil is no longer used for power generation, industries still consume oil (25% of total production).
3. India
- Barrels consumed per day in 2023 (in thousands): 5,446
- Barrels consumed per day in 2022 (in thousands): 5,209
- Year-over-year change in consumption: 4.5D
Oil consumption grew 4.5% sequentially in 2023, a trend that will continue to carry over into the first four months of 2024. Demand and associated domestic oil consumption grew 4.8% to 3.7 million tonnes in the same period of 2023. According to the Indian government’s Department of Petroleum Planning and Analysis, this development was driven by diesel, gasoline and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) products, which together account for two-thirds of the country’s total consumption.
2. China
- Barrels consumed per day in 2023 (in thousands): 16,577
- Barrels consumed per day in 2022 (in thousands): 14,970
- Change in consumption compared to previous year: 10.7D
China is one of the world’s largest oil consumers and drives the overall global oil market. According to Reuters, while domestic consumption will grow in 2023, analysts expect domestic oil consumption to fall as the slowdown in the Chinese economy impacts the construction sector. In addition, domestic diesel consumption is declining. This consumption growth is therefore expected to be below 3%, even lower than the average of 4.6% over the past decade.
1. United States
- Barrels consumed per day in 2023 (in thousands): 18,984
- Barrels consumed per day in 2022 (in thousands): 18,862
- Year-over-year change in consumption: 0.6D
Next up is the United States. Consumption in the country is expected to grow in 2024 due to strong demand from the residential and transportation sectors, which will account for 67% of total oil consumption in 2022. The EIA expects consumption to grow to 20.5 million barrels per day in 2024.
