Oil market upheavals ahead

The drastic impact on Italy’s oil products market of the country’s escalating gas consumption – forecast to rise by a third by 2015 – is examined in a new study. Findings include the large fuel oil market shrinking to less than a third of its present size by 2015, with the gasoil market growing and then declining to less than its present size and total oil products demand declining by 15%. If fulfilled, the forecast will place seemingly impossible demands on Italy’s refiners, Martin Quinlan writes