Chart o’ the Day: The Truth About Oil in Modern Society

Everyone wants to talk about the huge increase in oil production across North America thanks to new shale fracking techniques that hadn’t really existed a generation ago. And this is a true story.

But there is another true story that no one seems to want to discuss: We use less of it too.

Our cars have become more efficient. We’ve found other ways to allow different energy sources to power stuff. We demand less of it, even during economic expansion these days.

Today’s Chart o’ the Day comes from Ed Yardeni’s new deck ‘Energy Briefing: Global Crude Oil, Demand & Supply’ from last Friday.

Josh here – While crude oil demand is still rising in non-developed markets, it’s been trailing off fairly steadily in developed markets since before the financial crisis and appears to be in secular decline. This is the part of the oil price conundrum that few have commented on.