PARIS The coronavirus outbreak will slash global oil demand in 2020 to erase a decade of growth and set up “the worst year in the history” of the sector, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said Wednesday. Demand is projected to plummet by a record 9.3 million barrels per day (mbd) for the year as a whole, with 29 mbd in the month of April, and 26 mbd in May — “staggering numbers”, according to the agency´s executive director Fatih Birol. “I believe in a few years´ time, when you look at 2020 we may well see that it was the worst year in the history of global oil markets,” he told reporters on a teleconference. “During this terrible year, the second quarter may very well be the worst of the lot and… April may very well be the worst month.” The projected figures for this month were last seen in 1995, said Birol, describing this as “Black April in the history of the oil industry.” The global economy has been hard hit by the coronavirus outbreak, with many industries brought to their knees and air, rail and road traffic slashed as non-essential businesses were closed and hundreds of millions of people around the world placed in lockdown.—AP
