When will China's crude demand approach US useage?

allenwrench · Intermediate Crude Joined: Apr 23, 2008 Posts: 893

China has 4.3 times the US population.

When is it estimated China's crude demand will approach or surpass the US?

Or can that never happen since such growth rate would not be supported by global production?

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/ene_oil_con-energy-oil-consumption

PS if you have something on India's potential, post it as well.

Heineken · Posted: Mon Aug 25, 2008 8:46 pm Post subject: Re: China's potential

Could you make your title more specific? I clicked on it thinking it meant something else.
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skeptik · Posted: Tue Aug 26, 2008 5:24 am Post subject: Re: China's potential

vampyregirl · Heavy Crude Joined: Dec 19, 2007 Posts: 342

Chinese oil demand is increasing literally on a daily basis so it will be sooner than many people realize.

wisconsin_cur

Or when wil US crude demand fall to the point that it approaches Chinese usage?
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Micki

If you are using today's consumption figures, I would say never.
Given that oil supply is flat, USA and other countries would have to scale down equal amount that China ups in consumption.
Given the lead time in making this happen (i.e. theoretically if USA droped consumption to 0 tomorrow that wouldn't mean China could increase consumption as same rate as they don't have the machines cars etc that consumes that amount) it is likely that peak oil prevents China from ever reaching the current level of US consumption.

In a future scenario it is however not unimaginable that US consumption has been going down over a period of time whilst Chinese consumption has been going up and that at some point in future consumption graphs cross.
The big question is, will this be in a world where alternative energies have started emerging or even reached some maturity or not.
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vtsnowedin · Intermediate Crude Joined: Jul 11, 2008 Posts: 633

I think the more interesting question is what will the price of crude be when the graphs cross. At some point the Chinese will have sold us enough junk in wally world to cash in all there accumulated dollars at the same time we are limited to paying back our accumulated debt. If the world lost confidence in the US ability to pay and cut off credit to us could we last a week?