India Cements Third Place in Global Oil Demand at 5.6 mb/d, EI Review Shows
Global oil consumption reached a record 103.039 million barrels per day in 2025, with India's 5.642 million barrels per day demand securing its place as the world's third-largest oil consumer, according to the Energy Institute's statistical review of world energy published on Friday (2026-07-03). The figure marks a milestone in India's emergence as a structural demand driver alongside China and the United States.3
The United States retained the top spot at 19.404 million barrels per day, followed by China at 17.360 million barrels per day. The three largest consumers together represent roughly 41 percent of the 103.039 million barrels of global daily demand recorded in the EI review. The gap between China and India, a spread of nearly 12 million barrels per day, reflects China's more advanced industrialisation and larger vehicle fleet, but India's trajectory suggests that distance will narrow over the coming decade.3
Asia Pacific, aggregating consumption from Japan, South Korea, Southeast Asia and the two largest individual consumers, reached 39.721 million barrels per day — more than North America's 23.586 million barrels per day and Europe's 14.259 million barrels per day combined. The region's 38.5 percent share of global demand means Asian refinery runs and demand signals carry disproportionate weight in how global supply balances shift through the calendar.3
Europe's demand was effectively unchanged, slipping from 14.260 million barrels per day in 2024 to 14.259 million in 2025, a change of roughly 1,000 barrels per day. North America expanded 1.2 percent year on year, reaching 22.9 percent of global demand. The developed world, taken together, is no longer the demand growth engine; that role has passed to Asia.3
India's growth is concentrated in diesel-heavy sectors: freight haulage, agriculture and industry, along with a growing passenger vehicle fleet. Coal power generation in India fell 3.0 percent year on year in 2025, the first simultaneous decline alongside China in half a century, as both countries added record clean energy capacity, according to Carbon Brief analysis. The divergence between falling coal power and rising oil demand is straightforward: India's oil is consumed in transport and industry, not on the grid. As India's power mix greens, its road and industrial energy demand continues to draw on crude.2,3
The Strait of Hormuz, through which approximately 21 million barrels per day of oil flowed in 2022, accounting for about 21 percent of global petroleum liquids consumption at the time, is the primary supply route linking Middle Eastern producers to both India and China. Any sustained disruption to Hormuz flows would fall hardest on the world's two largest non-US consumers.1
China's demand picture is more ambiguous than India's. Beijing's electric vehicle market has expanded at a rate that has begun trimming oil consumption in the light vehicle fleet. Whether that substitution accelerates sufficiently to offset expansion in industrial and aviation demand will determine China's trajectory. The 17.360 million barrels per day recorded for 2025 may be nearer a near-term ceiling than India's 5.642 million barrels per day, which carries the momentum of a still-industrialising economy with comparatively low current EV penetration.3
ICE Brent crude front-month stood at $72.12 as of Friday's close (2026-07-03). The EI data frame the demand side of that equation: global consumption grew 1.3 percent in 2025, adding roughly 1.3 million barrels per day to the baseline. How China navigates its EV transition and whether Indian refinery capacity keeps pace with domestic demand are the two demand-side variables that will matter most heading into the second half of 2026.3