Europe’s fuel demands are gradually recovering after hitting the record-lows at the peak of the coronavirus outbreak in April but still remains below normal levels compared to previous years.
Britain’s sales in road fuel rising 3% in the past week, but this level is still 66% of the pre-pandemic state. In the second week of June, average sales were at 11,717 litres per station, showing 3.2% rise from the week before. This data from the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy took sales samples of diesel and gasoline from approximately 4,500 gas stations across the country. The country started the lockdown on March 23, and eight weeks after that the daily sales of road fuel were at 17,690, and twelve weeks after March 23 average sales are at 8,510 litres, decreasing 48% from eight previous weeks.
In Italy, May oil consumption was at 3.64 million tons, up 36% previous month but less 28.5% in the year-on-year comparison. The data also shows that jet fuel consumption is recovering at a significantly slower pace than road fuel.
Spain data showed that road fuel regression in June 14 week were 34% for gasoline and 25% for diesel compared year-on-year. However, this is a much significant improvement from the month of April when the withdrawals for gasoline were at 79% and diesel 57% year-on-year.
Data from The International Energy Agency displayed European oil demand fell as much as 690,000 barrel/day in the Q1 and at 3.3 million barrel/day in Q2. The agency expected the decrease in demand will be lowered to 1.3 million barrel/day in Q3 and further decrease to 570,000 barrel/day in the last quarter of 2020.
