By America Hernandez
PARIS -French oil major TotalEnergies expects global oil demand to rise until 2040 before gradually declining, as political fragmentation and energy security concerns slow efforts to cut emissions, it said in its annual energy outlook report on Tuesday.
The forecast marks an upward revision from last year, reflecting U.S. President Donald Trump’s partial rollback of green subsidies and resumption of liquefied natural gas plant licences, as well as coal plant installations in Asia and lagging electric vehicle sales globally.
The report outlines three scenarios: current trends, a moderately ambitious “momentum” scenario, and a “rupture” scenario aligned to the Paris Agreement.
“We can present this rupture scenario, but given the level of political fragmentation, the probability of its success is diminishing, even out of reach, because the international coordination required is not what we see today,” said TotalEnergies CEO Patrick Pouyanne at a press briefing.
OIL DEMAND RISING UNTIL 2040
Pouyanne said that TotalEnergies decided not to forecast the year oil demand will peak “due to the conflict between my colleagues about which exact year in the 2030s it will hit and the political attention around this debate.”
The report shows oil demand rising nearly 5% to 108 million barrels per day in 2040 under current trends, with world consumption then dropping to 98 million bpd in 2050.
Under Total’s momentum scenario, oil demand would be 79 million bpd in 2050. The Paris-aligned scenario would see consumption fall to 55 million bpd in 2050.
US AND CHINA: OLD AND NEW ENERGY SUPERPOWERS
While last year’s report said the U.S. would set the pace of the global energy transition, Pouyanne on Tuesday said China is now the leader. The U.S., he said, remained the superpower of conventional oil and gas only.
“China in 10 years has become the clean tech superpower, the new energy supermajor, and it’s spectacular, they must have an 80% market share in all the technologies we need tomorrow,” Pouyanne said.
“It’s a reality. We can cry about it, or we can say it’s good for the planet and ask ourselves how to copy-paste.”
Global natural gas demand is expected to rise about 10%, reaching 4,620 billion cubic meters by 2050, while electricity demand will nearly double to reach 57,140 Terawatt-hours in 2050.
Power demand from data centers will account for 7% of electricity demand in 2050, though Pouyanne cautioned that the power needs of artificial intelligence were difficult to predict given the potential leapfrogs in algorithms and energy efficiency technology.
(Reporting by America Hernandez in Paris, Editing by Louise Heavens and Conor Humphries)
