Emerging Markets' Oil Appetite Exceeds U.S.

By Paul Kedrosky · Tuesday, April 22, 2008 ·

This year for the first time the collective oil appetite of emerging markets -- many of which don't pay the market price for oil -- will exceed that of the U.S. It is striking stuff, as evidenced by the following figure:

emerging-oil

Among other points of the piece is that, as a result, while recent recessions have produced double-digit percentage decreases in oil demand, this one will be different. It is, pace my friend economist Jeff Rubin at CIBC, more likely we are headed through $120 oil on our way to $150.

Interesting stuff.

[via Bloomberg]

[Update] And more figure, this time via the fine folks at BCA. This one shows the moonshot of Chinese oil demand:

china-oil