There Could be a 'Significant Slowdown' in Global Oil Demand Growth in 2024: Morgan Stanley

Martijn Rats, Chief Commodity Strategist at Morgan Stanley discusses the outlook for oil markets focusing on China in an interview with CNBC:

• “China is one of the key anchors in the oil market, by all measures we can track…..China demand has been excellent this year”
• “[Chinese] refineries are running, and they are importing crude. We don’t see that many stock builds of refined products.”
• “There have been disappointments in China from the reopening [for the economy] but in the oil markets that is not the case.”
• “If we look at mobility statistics, domestic flights are up, congestion measures are relatively encouraging, irrespective of the rest of the economy, people seem to be flying and driving. That part of the economy is simply doing what we expected it to do at the start of the year.”
• “Looking forward, the more [Chinese] oil demand has recovered, the less it has to grow from here on. This year we are looking at strong global oil growth in historical context, something in the region of 2mn bpd”
• “This year is probably the last year of post-Covid recovery in demand, next year we might see growth closer to historical trend growth of 1.2mn bpd.”
• “If China demand doesn’t grow from here on out, there could be a significant fall in oil demand growth on the back of China.”