Peak_Yeast wrote:One thing I miss in the argumentation is the influence from demand destruction across a long list of countries.
While I do not have the time to find all the graphs I am having a picture of significant demand destruction/reduction in:
1. Libya
2. PIIGS / EU
3. USA
4. China
And possibly Syria, Egypt, Tunesia, Liberia and many others.
No citations I see. This is the opposite of what I've seen from the objective oil demand observations and projections for US and global consumption for 2015 and 2016. For example, in the US, low oil product prices are spurring travel demand and demand for big SUV's and trucks (i.e. more consumption).
http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/steo/report/us_oil.cfmSo per the EIA, note how in the US, jet fuel and motor gasoline and fuel oil and total consumption are all increasing 2013 through 2015, and total consumption is forecast to increase in 2016. So how is that reflecting demand destruction?
https://www.iea.org/oilmarketreport/omrpublic/And for the IEA, a solid oil supply AND demand increase is projected through 2016, and has been occurring since 2013.
Why post a few uncited outliers you think (or hope) show demand destruction when the global trend for both demand and consumption are clearly higher (at least by cited, reasonably reliable sources)?
Demand destruction is much more of a force when prices rise strongly. With the global economy slowly growing, the folks on this site continually talking like people can no longer prefer oil products when they are FAR cheaper than in the 2010-2014 period, when global economic growth also occurred, is silly.
Claiming that if oil gets down to dirt cheap levels (below $20) it is because people can't afford oil products, it's ludicrous when the global economy is growing.
The near term price issue is fears of far too much supply in the short term, not demand destruction as motorized transportation gets far cheaper with the short term economic "gift" of dirt cheap oil.