'Peak Demand' Means World May Never See Oil at $100 a Barrel Again

The IEA forecasts global oil demand to rise modestly by around 0.5 percent per year through to 2040 to 103.9 million barrels per day, driven by non-OECD countries.

Eldar Saetre, Chief Executive Officer of Norwegian oil compnay Statoil, sees oil demand actually declining, although oil companies will still have to invest to replace existing capacity as it declines.

"In our scenario, we see much lower oil consumption than we have today," he told reporters on the sidelines of the conference.

"You still need a lot of additional (oil) capacity because of natural decline... Overall, we see the same type of combined levels for oil and gas but lower oil and more gas."

The change is expected to hit Western economies first, with demand set to go back to levels last seen in 1966, according to Dev Sanyal, BP's Executive Vice President, Strategy and Regions.

"We do believe the aspect that people were set about 25 years ago, which was peak oil, has now clearly gone away. There is a lot of supply of both oil and gas. The big challenge in OECD economies is peak demand."

Still, some firms are expecting robust demand in developing countries will keep the world's thirst for oil strong. The President of New Energies at France's Total, Philippe Boisseau, said he did not expect global demand to plateau, even though OECD consumption is likely to decline.

"Even when including the huge efficiency efforts, (oil demand) will grow. So I don't believe in peak demand for the world. For Europe and the West, maybe, but not for the world."

(Reporting by Ron Bousso; Editing by Peter Graff)