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Andreas De Vries

Andreas De Vries

Andreas de Vries is a Strategy Consultant in the Oil & Gas industry, supporting companies to not only develop strategies for success but also execute them.

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Will Electric Vehicles Cause A Future Oil Crash?

Will Electric Vehicles Cause A Future Oil Crash?

The major oil companies greatly underestimate the impact electric vehicles will have on their market, write independent energy advisors Salman Ghouri and Andreas de Vries. According to Ghouri and De Vries, the trends currently underway in the auto industry are likely to have a substantial impact on oil demand in the medium term, and even a devastating impact in the longer term.

If there is one event in history that has shaped the crude oil industry, it is the popularization of the internal combustion engine (ICE) by the auto industry.

At the beginning of the 20th century, coal and wood were the dominant sources of energy, together providing more than 90 percent of global energy consumption. From 1910 onward, however, the Automotive Revolution triggered by Henry Ford spurred on demand for liquid fuels, causing crude oil’s contribution to global energy supply to more than double every decade. Consequently, by 1970 crude oil had taken top-spot in the global energy mix.

Continued growth in the transportation sector ever since has provided the world’s oil companies with plenty of organic growth opportunities. And judging by the energy outlooks the major oil companies have published, they appear to expect this status quo to continue. For example, BP’s most recent Energy Outlook 2035 assumes that non-oil based transport will grow just 5 percent per annum for the next 20 years, and that essentially all of this growth will be in the gas-powered transport segment. Similarly, The Outlook for Energy: A View to 2040 published by ExxonMobil assumes that by 2040 “plug in” electric vehicles (EVs) and fuel cell vehicles (FCVs) will have no more than a 4 percent market share. Chevron, meanwhile, has indicated that it plans on the basis of the assumption that the auto industry will remain fundamentally the same for at least another 50 years.

Alternative assumptions

However, as we documented elsewhere, the auto industry itself expects its future to be radically different from its present. To assess how the new vision of the auto industry would impact crude oil demand, we have developed an Alternative Energy Outlook (AEO).

The starting point of our AEO is research by Navigant Research, which predicts that by 2035 the total number of vehicles on the world’s roads will have grown to over 2 billion, from some 1.2 billion today. We assumed this growth to go through three distinct stages: during the period 2016 – 2020 a continuation of the 4 percent annual growth witnessed from 2010 to 2014, 2.5 percent annual growth during the period 2021 – 2030 as growth in China and India slows, and finally 1.5 percent annual growth for the outer period 2031 – 2040.

(Click to enlarge)

Figure 1: Vehicle pool growth assumptions of the AEO

We have looked at the implications of this growth of the transport sector for crude oil demand, under three sets of assumptions:

- First, that the EV share in the global vehicle pool will increase based on a continuation of the current 50 percent annual growth rate in EV sales until the end of this decade, after which EV sales growth will slow down to 30 percent per annum during the period 2021 – 2030 and further slow down to 15 percent per annum during the period 2031 – 2040. This is the reference case in our alternative outlook.

- Second, that the EV share in the global vehicle pool will increase based on a slightly lower 42 percent annual growth rate in EV sales until the end of this decade, after which it will slow down further to 25 percent per annum during the period 2021 – 2030 and 12 percent per annum during the period 2031 – 2040. This is the low case in our alternative outlook.

- Third, that the EV share in the global vehicle pool will increase based on a 60 percent per annum growth in EV sales until the end of this decade, after which it will slow down to 36 percent per annum during the period 2021 – 2030 and further slow down to 18 percent per annum during the period 2031 – 2040. This is the high case in our alternative outlook.

The Alternative Energy Outlook

Using data from the IEA we estimate that in 2015 the global vehicle pool consumed 42 percent of the total crude consumption of 93.0 mmbd (million barrels per day), or roughly 39.5 mmbd. This data point enabled us to estimate what global crude oil demand would look like for 2020, 2030 and 2040, if the mentioned growth in vehicles will be entirely in the ICE segment of the transportation, as the conventional energy outlooks of the oil companies assume, and that average vehicle efficiency remains constant.

Our alternative energy outlook uses the same assumption for growth in the global vehicle pool, but assumes that EVs will displace some ICE vehicles. This enables us to assess the number of barrels lost from global crude oil demand due to EV penetration, through performing the following calculation for each of the mentioned periods (where CEO means “conventional energy outlook” and AEO means “alternative energy outlook”):

(Total number of ICE Vehicles CEO – Total number of ICE Vehicles AEO) * Average fuel consumption of ICE vehicle 2015 actual

(Click to enlarge)

Figure 2: Vehicle pool compositions of the AEO

In the reference case of our alternative energy outlook, the number of EVs grows from its current 1 million to 8 million by 2020 (1 percent of the total vehicle pool), to 105 million by 2030 (6 percent), and to 424 million by 2040 (19 percent). The displacement of 7 million ICE vehicles by EVs during the period 2016 – 2020 would result in a crude oil demand that is 0.3 mmbd lower than the forecast that is based on the assumptions of the conventional energy outlooks.

In the reference case a further 97 million ICE vehicles would be replaced by EVs during 2021 – 2030, and another 319 million during 2031 – 2040. This would remove 3.4 mmbd from the crude oil demand forecasted by the conventional energy outlooks by 2030, and 13.8 mmbd by 2040.

In the low case of the alternative energy outlook the number of EVs grows from its current 1 million to 6 million by 2020 (<1 percent of the total vehicle pool), 54 million by 2030 (3 percent), and 167 million by 2040 (8 percent). Here, crude oil demand would be lower than forecasted by the conventional energy outlooks by 0.2 mmbd by 2020, 1.7 mmbd by 2030 and 5.4 mmbd by 2040.

In the high case of the alternative energy outlook the number of EVs grows from its current 1 million to 10 million by 2020 (1 percent of the total vehicle pool), 227 million by 2030 (12 percent) and 1,188 million by 2040 (55 percent). The oil companies’ forecast for crude oil demand would then be reduced by 0.3 mmbd by 2020, 7.5 mmbd by 2030 and 38.9 mmbd by 2040.

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(Click to enlarge)

Figure 3: Crude oil demand losses according to the AEO

Conclusions

From an oil industry perspective, the positive news in our Alternative Energy Outlook is that EVs will have no meaningful impact on crude oil demand in the short term, irrespective of the assumptions used.

For the evaluation of the medium term impact of EVs it is important to remember that the recent crash of the oil price was caused by a supply – demand imbalance estimated to be around 2 mmbd. The low case of the AEO would already remove a similar quantity from crude oil demand, meaning that EVs should be expected to have a substantial impact on crude oil demand, and hence the crude oil price, in the medium term.

In the longer term the impact of the trends currently underway in the auto industry could well be devastating for the crude oil industry. The sooner the industry realizes this, the bigger the chances it will find new opportunities for growth in the future that the auto industry intends to create.

By Andreas de Vries and Salman Ghouri via Energypost.eu

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Leave a comment
  • K.Starkov on March 31 2016 said:
    The laziest ordered by speculator add we've seen so far… Why only the number of vehicles, what about how much commercial tracks consume vs personal cars? Who would manufacture an electric 20-40 tonn truck in the nearest future if half of the weight it will have to carry will be batteries? Who will drive EV in north regions when under -20C batteries lose over 50% capacity? …And so on and so on…
  • Bill Simpson on April 01 2016 said:
    After the Japanese, German, and US manufacturers start selling a lot of electric vehicles, following the coming oil price spike in about 4 years, electric vehicle sales will take off. People will see how superior to complex internal combustion engine powered vehicles they are. No lubrication, cooling, ignition, fueling, or complex transmission needed. Just a battery pack, some solid state electronics, and an electric motor with one major moving part. With a battery pack replacement, and a few tire changes, a Tesla might last a working lifetime. By 2030, electrics will be about 30% of new cars sold in the US. By 2050, they will be 80% of new vehicles sold. I recently saw a video of a robot building an electric motor in a German auto plant. It was almost scary. No human labor needed!
    Oil will still be in demand because global population won't peak until around 2050. Asians and Africans would like another billion vehicles. Most of those will probably be gasoline powered, because batteries may always cost more than a plastic fuel tank and a mass produced 4 cylinder engine.
    Jets, ships, many locomotives, farm tractors, and heavy trucks will be oil powered until the end of the century. And the tires are made using oil. With the thousands of other uses of oil, it will always be a valued commodity.
  • David Hrivnak on April 01 2016 said:
    The EVs are coming even where it is cold as witnessed by Norway with the largest market share of EVs including a guy north of the artic circle with 6 Tesla cars he uses for ice races my on frozen lakes. I have two plug-ins and the ability to preheat and the instant electric heat are actually pluses in the winter.
  • R Jensen on April 01 2016 said:
    Q: Will Electric Vehicles Cause A Future Oil Crash?

    A: Depends on where the electricity will come from. Today, electric cars are mostly powered by natural gas or coal.
  • David Hrivnak on April 01 2016 said:
    No need to power from coal as in a poll of Tesla owners 60% power their cars from rooftop solar. My solar system produces 90% of the power for the house AND two plug-in cars. But even if you did emissions are still half that of a gas powered car.
  • Simon on April 01 2016 said:
    Yep, sure, but there is enough mining to provide the chemical elements necessary? What about mining pollution?
  • Steve on November 22 2016 said:
    I think looking back at this 20 years from now should give us a giggle. First of all, this is coming from a western urban perspective. This doesn&#039;t take into account for developing nations which are experiencing accelerated growth. It is doubtful to me that they will be able to go straight to electric vehicles which will be expensive. Developing nations already account for nearly 60% of demand. Oil will be king until world prices stay high enough to make alternatives cost effective for everyone worldwide; not just Europe and North America. No one is going to pay higher transportation costs if it isn&#039;t unecessary.

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