After the momentous events of the last few weeks it is was perhaps to be expected that the International Energy Agency would cut its estimates of world oil demand in the next year, and it didn't disappoint when it released its latest oil market report on Friday.
The IEA slashed its demand numbers for 2008 and 2009 by 240,000 b/d and 440,000 b/d respectively, and was particularly gloomy about the prospects for growth in the developed world.
OECD demand is poised to fall by more than 1 million b/d this year, and then decline again in 2009 for the fourth consecutive year, according to the IEA data.
The scale of the downward revisions shows how quickly the turmoil in financial markets has had an impact on the physical world of oil consumption - the IEA report comes out on a monthly basis, which in more normal times means its adjustments are small and regular, rather than coming in big increments like this.
For now the agency's prognosis for the world outside the OECD is healthier, with no big changes made to expected demand in 2008 or 2009. There is no clear sign yet of a slowdown in China and demand in the Middle East is apparently 'robust.'
If the financial crisis deepens in the coming weeks and pushes the world as a whole towards a recession, then that could change. And with oil prices already having lost more than 40% of their value since their record points earlier this summer, that could really give producers something to worry about.
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