Eschew Obfuscation

Per Capita GDP and Oil Consumption

Posted by Max Dunn Sun, 03 Apr 2011 16:25:00 GMT

In Peak Oil in 2012, I looked at the strong link between worldwide GPD and oil consumption. But what about per capita oil consumption? It turns out that there is a very interesting story there too.

As reported by Frank Holmes in Seeking Alpha, China currently consumes 2 barrels of oil per per per person. At the same PPP level of $5,000 per year, Japan consumed over 18 barrels, Taiwan 6 barrels and Korea 4 barrels!

Since China currently consumes about 10 million barrels a day, just doubling their per capita usage would require an extra 10 million barrels a day, which is 12% of the world total. Since oil production has been relatively flat since 2005, it is unlikely that additional oil production will ever be able to provide that amount.

This is just another indicator that our worldwide oil supplies will never again be able to meet our total oil demand.