No abstract

The ton-kilometre performed as a measure of world air traffic grew 6.1 per cent annually during the last three decades despite many impediments during this period, such as the Asian financial crisis, severe acute respiratory syndrome outbreak, wars in the Middle East and many security-related events. Although all of the world's regions are experiencing fast growth, the aviation traffic pattern varies by region. However, the traffic growth led to more demand for aviation fuel. World aviation oil demand was 1.18 mb/d in 1971. It experienced an annual growth rate of 2.9 per cent, 0.2 per cent ahead of the transportation sector growth rate, and reaching 4.9 mb/d in 2006. With this consumption level, the aviation sector is the second major consumer with an 11.2 per cent share in total oil demand in the transportation sector. The aviation sector burns about 5.8 per cent of total oil consumed in the world. Technology improvement and better load management among other factors caused ongoing improvement in energy efficiency. Regional econometric modelling showed that aviation fuel demand is inelastic to aviation fuel prices despite their inverse impacts on financial balances of individual airliners. The fuel demand is highly responsive to aviation traffic that in turn is mainly a function of economic growth. Elasticises of fuel demand and aviation traffic confirmed the continuation of the ongoing energy intensity decline in the aviation sector by all the regions of the world. In the reference case, aviation incremental fuel demand will be 2.7 mb/d in 2030, which would leave aviation demand at 7.8 mb/d in the same year. Most of the incremental demand, i.e. 0.75 mb/d, will be contributed by China. Copyright 2010 The Author. Journal compilation 2010 Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries.

The international marine bunker demand faces many challenges with regard to regulation on fuel quality by the International Maritime Organization (IMO). This paper reviews the most recent challenges and evolutions related to fuel demand and development in international maritime transportation. By developing a simple recursive econometric model, the future demand is forecast under the no‐policy change scenario. In the alternative scenario, the impacts of Annex VI of IMO's marine pollution convention on spread price between the high‐sulphur and low‐sulphur fuel oil are elaborated, and eventually, the impacts on future bunker demand are evaluated. The low price elasticity of bunker demand confirms minimal impacts on demand albeit considerable impacts on running cost of vessels. Bunker demand elasticity with regard to international maritime transportation is estimated at 0.55, showing that inevitable international transportation requirement is the key driver for bunker demand. Implementation of Annex VI would certainly change the mixture of bunker fuel, which mainly depends on the penetration of SO2 scrubbers on‐board of vessels and/or fuel switching. However, due to discrepancy in the level of fuel consumption and uncertain mixture of bunker fuels in the future, the refinery sector and the international maritime transportation sector would face huge uncertainties.

Motorisation in Asia is soaring with rapid growth in incomes non-lin-early. Even though car ownership per 1,000 population is still low in countries like China, India or Indonesia, escalating number of cars is affected by GDP growth among other infrastructural factors in a non-linear manner. This quick growth in car ownership may represent a significant implication on road transport fuel demand. This paper forecasts the demand for road transport fuel in India. For this purpose, econometric models, based on time series data, are constructed as for a major factor affecting fuel demand in road transportation i.e. car ownership. Copyright 2007 Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries.

On the quest for reducing the fuel consumption per passenger per flight for economical and environmental reasons, commercial aircraft manufacturers are implementing new strategies for optimising aircraft performance by using new lighter and stronger materials and enhancing engines' efficiencies in terms of fuel consumption and maintenance requirements. With the rising and falling of economies, whether in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries or other developing countries, the aviation industry has been affected by multiple factors such as passenger traffic, freight traffic, airport capacities and oil prices. Aircraft manufacturers have worked on improving the engine efficiency of their newly built airplanes (e.g. Airbus's A-380 and Boeing's B-787), and many airports in the world have increased the number of their runways to face the increasing demand for air traffic in the world. Aviation efficiency can also be achieved through better load management, which in return enables airliners to cope with higher oil prices or rising costs. Aviation fuel demand is modelled in OECD North America, Europe and Pacific regions and some selected developing countries. Price elasticities of fuel demand in all regions are low, while income elasticities are high. The elasticity of aviation fuel demand on passenger kilometre performed (PKP) is considerably low. One per cent increase in PKP leads to less than half a per cent increase in aviation fuel demand, confirming an ongoing fuel efficiency in aviation industry. Copyright 2009 The Authors. Journal compilation 2009 Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries.