German Group Sees Lower Car Fuels Use by 2025
Date: 28-Jun-06
Country: GERMANY
Author: Vera Eckert
Consumption of the two products in 2025 will be just under 40 million tonnes, down from 53.1 million tonnes in 2005, MWV forecast as part of the results of a survey of its membership, which groups German refineries and petrol station operators.
"Compared with 2005, gasoline usage for road traffic alone will fall by 42 percent to 14 million tonnes by 2025," managing director Klaus Picard said in a statement.
"Annual diesel demand by that date will probably reach 26 million tonnes, which would represent a decline by 12 percent from the 2005 level," he added.
The Mineraloelwirtschaftsverband (MWV) said energy efficiency was increasing steadily in new cars, car owners were driving less and there was a trend towards replacing gasoline-driven vehicles with those taking diesel.
MWV noted the German government was encouraging biodiesel use, to cut reliance on fossil fuels, by not taxing it fully until 2011. It was also encouraging the blending of biodiesel with conventional fuels.
As a consequence, carbon dioxide emissions from road traffic would fall by 30 percent over the 20-year period to 113 million tonnes a year, MWV predicted.
Another consequence would be an increase in net exports of car fuels from Germany, MWV said.
Total German mineral oil products sales were forecast to fall to 97 million tonnes by 2025 from 112.2 million tonnes in 2005, the group said.
The forecast assumed an oil price of US$40 a barrel up to 2025 and gross domestic product growth of 1.5 percent per annum in the period under review.
Apart from car fuels, the total mineral oil products sales forecast covered naptha, heating oil, jet fuel, liquid gas and lubricants.
A nearer forecast for oil products sales in 2006 was pegged at 114 million tonnes, up 1.6 percent from 2005 and based on expectations for a rebuild of heating oil stocks by private household customers.
