LONDON, Nov 2 (Reuters) – Global oil consumption is growing rapidly, helping account for the decline in reported inventories, the recent surge in prices and the shift in futures markets from contango to backwardation.
Consumption is much harder to measure than production, which is why the demand side of the market receives less attention.
Even in the advanced economies, consumption data is only available with a delay of two months or more, and reliable data from emerging economies often not at all.
Global oil demand assessments are therefore often educated guesswork, as analysts try to calculate how much oil has been used and how much is in storage.
