Record-high prices will reduce the world's demand for crude oil in 2005, the Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA) said in its Monthly Oil Report, issued on Tuesday. The IEA trimmed its forecast for global oil demand in 2005 by 70,000 barrels per day (bpd), to 83.85 million bpd. It also revised downward the growth of global oil demand for next year by 320,000 bpd, to 1.45 million bpd. "Record-high oil prices are chiefly responsible, both directly and indirectly, for the downward revisions for 2005," the IEA said. The rise in prices has "trimmed prevalent assumptions of global economic growth for 2005", the report said, and also inspired energy-saving measures and "fuel-switching from oil in China and other non-OECD Asian economies". As a result of fuel-switching and other measures, the IEA said, "Chinese demand growth shows signs of easing". Preliminary data suggest that China's oil demand growth for August slowed to 6 per cent, compared to 12 per cent in July and 25 per cent in the second quarter of 2004..
