Oil consumption in Europe: trends

Europe was the largest consumer of oil that did not have its own resources. Historically, Romania was the only European state with terrestrial deposits. The amount extracted from Romania decreased steadily after the Second World War. The discovery of deposits in the North Sea and other regions could not cover the consumption needs of the European states, and the EU was completely dependent on extra-regional imports, especially from Russia.

The situation in the 2010s

There are two major components of oil consumption. In the chemical industry, oil is used for fertilizers, obtaining plastics and other materials. At the same time, oil is/was one of the main sources of energy, both industrially, in thermal power plants, and for vehicles.

The EU’s plan to reduce pollution by 2030 mainly aims to reduce the consumption of oil and natural gas for energy production. The decline in oil consumption began decades ago and was accelerated by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The conflict led to the drastic reduction of imports from Russia, to finding other suppliers for European countries and, above all, to accelerating the transition to renewable energies.

The biggest consumers in 2009-2010 were Germany, with 115 million tons, France, with about 85 million tons, and almost equally Italy, Spain and Great Britain, with about 75 million tons annually.

The situation in 2021

Many of the European countries had drastically reduced their annual consumption. But the contextual trend was not always downward. Germany had reached 83 million tons. The decline was 28% in ten years, but the German economy remains the main consumer of oil, with a fifth of EU consumption.

On the 2nd, France had reduced over 20 million tons in ten years. 2021, however, had brought a substantial increase compared to the previous year. Likewise, Italy, Spain, Poland, the Netherlands, Belgium, despite greater or lesser decreases in the previous period, had increasing consumption in 2021.

Most of the consumption, almost half, is for the production of energy needed for road transport.

see the complete statistics provided by Eurostat: LINK

In total, transport is responsible for almost two thirds of consumption. The non-energy use of oil has a share of only 15%.

The situation in 2023

The years 2020 and 2021 were marked by the industrial reduction caused by the Covid pandemic. That is why in 2022, although the oil market has been completely disrupted by the war started by the Russians, Europe’s consumption is increasing. The same trend holds in 2023, although the data is not definitive. The annual rate, compared to 2021, is about 5% on top. The level of consumption thus increased very close to the level of 2018.

In 2022, Russia remained the main supplier, although volumes decreased during the year. In total, the share of imports from Russia was 26%. A significant decline began only from December 2022, and in February 2023 an embargo on Russian oil came into force. In the first quarter of this year, the share of imports from Russia fell to 3%.

The import sources became, in order, Norway, Saudi Arabia and the United States.

To an even greater extent than quantities, the price of oil has fluctuated. If during the pandemic the price had fallen to unimaginable levels, the post-pandemic period led to accelerated increases, and the war in Ukraine aggravated the situation even more.

The fluctuations caused by the pandemic and the conflict make the evolution of the consumption of petroleum products fluctuating and relatively unpredictable. In the long term, the decision is to decrease consumption and replace oil as an energy source. The general objective of the EU is a decrease in consumption by about 10% until 2025. Until 2050 there are several scenarios for reducing consumption. The most conservative predicts a drop of more than 50%, and the most optimistic exceeds 90%.

In terms of hydrocarbon pollution, oil is not the worst. In first place is natural gas, used to a much greater extent in the production of industrial energy, in thermal power plants throughout Europe.

Romanian version: Harta consumului de petrol în Europa: tendințe