Time For A Good Sweating In The Oil Market -- Reuters -- Rigzone

Link here:

U.S. demand for petroleum products has experienced an unprecedented and broad-based decline over the last eight years as soaring oil prices have forced consumers to become more efficient and seek cheaper alternatives.

Consumption of oil-based products has fallen in every major category - from gasoline, diesel and jet kerosene to heating oil, fuel oil, petrochemical feedstock, petroleum coke and asphalt, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

In every case, consumption has fallen in absolute terms and the decline is even steeper compared with the growth in population and the size of the economy since 2005. The extent of demand destruction varies from a relatively small reduction in motor gasoline and diesel to steep falls in the use of heavy fuel oil, petroleum coke, asphalt and oil-based products as feedstock for making petrochemicals.

The final two paragraphs:

In the next couple of years, there will be plenty more headlines about cancelled projects and producers struggling to break even, as well as signs of recovering consumption. For oil bulls, that is reason to hope prices will soon recover. But it is more useful to see it as a necessary adjustment and reaction after several years of exceptionally high prices.

Only lower prices can slow the shale juggernaut and high-cost offshore exploration while slowing consumption losses in the advanced economies and encouraging faster demand growth in emerging markets.

Unmentioned in the article are the high CAPEX wind, solar, renewable energy projects. But back to fossil fuel: I think "demand destruction" is huge. It will be interesting to see the changes in the US if oil drops "permanently" to $80/bbl or less. I'm thinking Dwight Eisenhower and the nifty fifties.