Outlook 2025: Crude markets look forward to brighter 2025

China drove the market for crude into the doldrums in 2024 with a big drop in demand, but a turnaround looks likely next year

At the time of writing this analysis, the jury is still out on the final oil demand growth figures for 2024. But one thing is for sure: the foremost forecasters and market participants have been deeply disappointed by the oil market’s performance. We at Vortexa track all seaborne oil and gas flows. Unfortunately, the picture looks even bleaker than the demand assessments. Based on data for the first ten months of 2024 vs the same period of 2023, seaborne shipments of all oil were down by 500,000b/d, with 300,000b/d of this accounted for by crude. Only LPG arrivals were up, by about 100,000b/d, thanks to rising US exports, while motor fuels were flat, with the remainder of the decline account