Will Higher Oil Prices Destroy Demand?
Oil prices have dipped a bit this week, but still remain at their highest levels in nearly three and a half years. The reasons are by now familiar to most readers who pay attention to the daily whims of the oil market: OPEC cuts, falling inventories, geopolitical unrest and strong demand growth, to name a few.
But at what point do higher prices start to destroy some of that demand, erasing one of the most significant bullish factors influencing the market right now? As John Kemp over at Reuters points out, there isn’t a magical threshold in which demand is humming along swimmingly and then suddenly drops off a cliff. There isn’t a binary response in that way.
Consumers respond in different ways to different prices, and the duration of high prices also matters quite a bit. Auto fleet turnover takes time, and people don’t rush out and buy a more fuel efficient car immediately when prices spike. And as John Kemp rightly argues, demand will likely take a hit before we can detect it in the data.
Nevertheless, demand is sensitive to prices, which is to say it will slow or even decline if prices rise high enough. A brief look at recent history bears that out. Crude oil prices saw a historic run up in prices in the years preceding the 2008 record high spike and subsequent meltdown. That rally essentially ended a century-long upward trend in demand, which hit a high above 21 million barrels per day (mb/d) in the U.S. in 2006-2007. The financial crisis, a terrible economy, more efficient cars and a somewhat saturated auto market led to a temporary peak in oil demand, which was followed by several years at lower levels.
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When oil prices rose back to $100 per barrel in 2011 following the Arab Spring, demand dipped even further.
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