Asia is home to 60 percent of the global population and is the largest consumer of total primary energy, oil, coal, and renewables. It is also the third-largest natural gas consumer behind Europe and North America. As more natural gas becomes available in the form of LNG and piped gas, the region will soon become the world’s largest consumer of natural gas as well. Despite being the world’s largest consumer of oil, the Asia Pacific region only holds 2.8 percent of global oil reserves and only produces 7.63 million barrels per day (mmbd) compared to its oil consumption of 35.8 mmbd. That is an enormous amount of oil it has to import on a daily basis. Asia’s High Oil Import Dependency and the Strait of Hormuz In 2018, over 78 percent of Asia-Pacific oil demand – 28.17 mmbd – was imported. Of those imports 20.7 mmbd, or over 73 […]