NPR

Oil Demand Has Collapsed, And It Won't Come Back Any Time Soon

The pandemic massively reduced the world's consumption of oil. Now two influential reports suggest that this state of affairs will continue well into 2021 — if not longer.
An oil rig towers over houses last week in Nigg, Scotland. Major players in the oil industry expect depressed oil demand and low prices to continue well into next year.

2020 is shaping up to be an extraordinarily bad year for oil.

In the spring, pandemic lockdowns sent oil demand plummeting and markets into a tailspin. At one point, U.S. oil prices even turned negative for the first time in history.

But summer brought new optimism to the industry, with hopes rising for a controlled pandemic, a recovering economy and resurgent oil demand.

Those hopes are now fading. In a report Tuesday, the influential advisory body called the International Energy Agency revised its forecasts for global

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