Goldman Sachs said that a shift to private transportation, a pick-up in commuting and governments effort to heighten infrastructure spending as a way to improve economies will help the global return of oil demand to a pre-pandemic level by the year of 2022. Demand is forecasted to decline by 8% in 2020 before up by 6% in 2021 and recovering fully by 2022. The U.S bank said that oil demand has started its recovery with the surprising initial pace in economies like China and India, but the overall demand in June is still estimating to be 12% lower compared to last year level.
Goldman predicted gasoline will lead in the demand recovery among all oil products, while jet fuel might still suffer more as consumer confidence in air transportation is foreseen to stay low while the vaccine is still absent.
While current fuel demand is gradually recovering as lockdown measures loosening in many places around the globe, a second coronavirus wave could quickly cripple the trend, as showing in last week industry data. Recent media polls estimating oil prices will stabilize around $40/barrel this year, with recovery quicken in the Q4 and 2021, boosted with OPEC-led production cuts.
