Last month one of China’s most powerful oil executives caused a stir in markets with a stark prediction: that the country’s oil demand may peak this year.

Asked how the slowdown in China’s economy might affect domestic demand, Zhou Xinhuai, chief executive of Cnooc, said he expected the second half of 2023 to be weaker than the first, indicating a slowdown in demand year-on-year and meaning that “perhaps this year China’s domestic oil demand will reach a peak”.

That may overstate the case; the International Energy Agency (IEA) does not expect demand to plateau until 2027 and peak in 2030, as part of a general shift away from all fossil fuels. But whenever the date, analysts agree that China — where the IEA says oil demand has trebled over the past two decades — is getting close to an inflection point that will reverberate across the industry.