Against a gloomy global economic backdrop, one bright spot for the oil market is Asia.
In the first three-quarters of last year, consumption growth in China, Japan and elsewhere in the region more than compensated for falling demand in Europe and the US. Asian demand kept rising in the fourth quarter but, for the first time since 2009, the economic might of Asia was not enough to outshine falls in the rest of the world.
With the eurozone gripped by a sovereign debt crisis and oil consumption in the US sharply down, Asia’s oil markets, dominated by emerging economies such as China, India, Indonesia and Malaysia, have become a linchpin in helping crude prices hold up.
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