But they will need to avoid overspending and jeopardizing their future competitiveness. Heavy users of oil will have to take steps to mitigate the impact of higher fuel costs on their bottom line.
As for any commodity, keeping demand and supply in balance—or close to it—is essential for stable oil prices. Since their low point, when a pandemic-induced slowdown in the global economy caused demand to slump, prices have risen as economic activity has started to pick up. We expect that trend to accelerate due to an emerging imbalance between demand and supply.
Oil demand has the potential to rebound strongly as the world recovers from the COVID crisis—provided the US continues to rapidly vaccinate its population and programs in Europe and the rest of the world catch up.
As vaccinated individuals resume many of the ordinary activities denied to them over the past year, oil demand could experience one of its strongest-ever growth periods. Several emerging themes could drive oil demand sharply higher. Consumer interest in travel is growing. Leisure travel, which depends on oil for fuel, is the top spending priority for US consumers in , according to a survey by American Express.
See Exhibit 2. Lighthouse has found that US consumer interest in hotels and airline bookings rose sharply in the first quarter of , which will help boost jet fuel demand, the one major fuel still well below prepandemic levels it is not expected to fully recover until It will also stimulate ground transportation and boost demand for gasoline and diesel, as consumers seek to reconnect with family members in distant places.
Travel demand has already begun to soar in areas where trips are once again allowed. Both China the first country to recover from the pandemic and India, for example, experienced rising oil demand after they initially removed lockdown curbs and reopened their economies. Demand for oil is close to or above precrisis levels in these countries, although in India, the subsequent rise in infections and reintroduction of restrictions, among other factors, will likely check the demand recovery going forward.
Substantial savings exist. Fueling the pent-up demand for leisure travel and other oil-dependent activities are the substantial savings amassed by global consumers during lockdown. The global economy is recovering.
Given the underlying health of the global economy, combined with pent-up demand and sizeable discretionary funds available to meet that demand, global economic growth is set to boost oil consumption over the coming years. Clearly, the pandemic has left its mark in terms of the human cost of the crisis in fatalities and job losses. But it has had an impact in other ways as well, boosting e-commerce at the expense of more traditional sectors and changing how people work.
By , most advanced economies will have returned close to their prepandemic growth path, according to the IMF. Companies are reconfiguring supply chains. Companies that were working with lean inventory and just-in-time methods during the pandemic suffered the greatest negative impacts.
Today's Highlights. Christian Science Perspective. Oil pumps are shown in the desert oil fields of Sakhir, Bahrain. The world's oil reserves will last 53 more years at current extraction rates, according to BP's annual report. You've read of free articles.
Subscribe to continue. Mark Sappenfield. Our work isn't possible without your support. Digital subscription includes: Unlimited access to CSMonitor. The Monitor Daily email. No advertising. Cancel anytime. Related stories US energy in five maps infographics Test your knowledge Fracking. Tight oil. Do you know your energy vocabulary? Copy link Link copied. Mark Sappenfield Editor. Subscribe to insightful journalism. Over time, these remains were compressed and fossilised, creating carbon-rich fuel sources such as coal, oil and natural gas.
Different sources have given different estimates, with no universally agreed timeframe. If we keep burning fossil fuels at our current rate, it is generally estimated that all our fossil fuels will be depleted by Different fossil fuels have different depletion dates. In , the demand for oil rose by 1. With demand predominately driven by the transport sector, our oil reserves are running out faster than our other fossil fuels. Coal and natural gas are expected to last a little longer.
How long will coal last? It will depend on new technology, may be years in order to replace oil and gas. According to the IEA, in total global coal consumption in energy terms increased by 1 percent, or Again, China and India lead the increase in consumption. While the world is gobbling up fossil fuel, we are also developing alternative fuels. The world is actively developing renewable sources of energy — solar, wind and hydro — though the latter is limited because of global warming and overall lack of water.
Global renewable power production increased by 6. The growth rate in is around 75 Million tonnes oil equivalent Mtoe. As fossil fuels begin to disappear, nuclear power is becoming more and more prominent because it is the only alternative base system capable of providing electricity continuously 24 hours a day. It is carbon-free, vital to our clean energy future.
It was first developed in the s and since then its safety features have been much improved. Nuclear grew by 3. Uranium may last over years. But the coming of thorium-based nuclear reactors has been touted as the future of energy [18]. First, thorium is more abundant in nature than uranium. Thorium can be used in conjunction with Uranium, to transmute to Uranium to be used in various kinds of reactors. A variety pf reactors may be used, in particular molten salt reactors.
Here we want to emphasize a new next generation high temperature gas cooled reactors HTGR , which is safe, clean and sustainable. The fuel particles are embedded in a graphite matrix that is very stable at high temperatures. Such fuels can be irradiated for very long periods and thus deeply burn their original fissile charge. The membrane used can be a nanotechnology graphene.
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