Global oil consumption will set a peak in 2026 years, with gasoline sales beginning to slump as electric cars become more accessible, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said Wednesday night.
In general, international demand for oil with continue to decline sharply over the course of the next five years, the agency said
The also said that as a shift to electric vehicles and other cleaner technologies, fossil fuel consumption will essentially come to a halt by the end of the decade.
“The shift to a clean energy economy is picking up pace,” said IEA executive director Fatih Birol.
The IEA forecast comes as oil prices continue to slump, failing to respond to recent output cuts orchestrated by Saudi Arabia.
The price of Brent crude is currently about $75 a barrel, a dollar below the price before Riyadh announced on June 4 a cut of one million barrels a day, or about 1 percent of global supplies.
