PLATTS - India ended the first quarter of 2018 with robust oil products demand growth of 8.5%, the fastest quarterly growth since Q3 2016, as a renewed push on infrastructure projects and surging auto sales lifted gasoline and gasoil consumption.

IEA - Global energy demand rose by 2.1% in 2017, more than twice the previous year’s rate, boosted by strong global economic growth, with oil, gas and coal meeting most of the increase in demand for energy, and renewables seeing impressive gains.

IEA - Looking at demand, our estimate for global growth in 2018 has increased by 90 kb/d taking it up to 1.5 mb/d. Although this is a modest revision, it is interesting that provisional data suggests very strong starts to the year in China and India, which, taken together, accounted for nearly 50% of global demand growth in 2017. Cold weather in some parts of the northern hemisphere in January-February saw an increase in heating demand.

API - Led by gasoline and seasonal demand for heating fuels, U.S. petroleum demand hit 20.3 million barrels per day (MBD) in February. Demand was up by more than a million barrels per day from February of last year, nearing record highs not seen for more than a decade.

IEA - Our demand growth estimate for 2017 remains strong at 1.6 mb/d, reinforced by November data for the US. For 2018, the more positive global economic picture published by the International Monetary Fund is a key factor in raising our growth outlook to 1.4 mb/d. It was thought that the significant increase in the dollar price of crude oil since the middle of 2017 would dampen growth, and this might be the case to some extent, but the impact of higher prices has been partly offset in some countries by currency appreciations.

PLATTS - As a result, demand for OPEC crude will average 32.86 million b/d in 2018, the organization calculated.

PLATTS - Asian demand for oil products will outweigh current and upcoming refinery capacity by 2025, Tushar Tarun Bansal, Director at McKinsey, told attendees at S&P Global Platts annual Middle Distillates Conference in Antwerp Thursday.

API - Total petroleum deliveries in December rose to 20.7 million barrels per day. This was the strongest December monthly demand in the last decade.

PLATTS - China's apparent oil demand is expected to rise 4.6% year on year to hit 600 million mt (12.05 million b/d) in 2018, with net crude imports to increase 7.7% to 451 million mt, according to a report released Tuesday by state-owned China National Petroleum Corp.'s Economics and Technology Research Institute.

API - Total petroleum deliveries in October moved up by 1.1 percent from October 2016 to average 19.9 million barrels per day. These were the highest October deliveries in 10 years, since 2007. Compared with September, total domestic petroleum deliveries, a measure of U.S. petroleum demand, decreased 1.8 percent. For year-to-date, total domestic petroleum deliveries moved up 1.2 percent compared to the same period last year.