TotalEnergies Moves Oil Demand Peak Forward to 2035-2040 Window

TotalEnergies now expects global oil demand to peak between 2035 and 2040, pulling its forecast forward from the 2040 horizon it published only a year ago. The revision sits at the center of the French major's annual energy outlook, released Monday. The report projects demand for petroleum products plateauing through the 2030s before a slow decline sets in.

Chief sustainability officer Aurélien Hamelle told reporters that demand could fall faster still if electric vehicle sales keep growing. That is the company's own hedge, not a forecast. Treat it accordingly.

What changed in a year?

In November 2025, TotalEnergies forecast oil demand rising nearly 5% to 108 million barrels per day by 2040 under current trends, before easing to 98 million bpd by 2050. The company cited the partial rollback of U.S. green subsidies, new LNG approvals, new coal plants in Asia and slower EV sales as reasons for the rosier barrel count.

At the time, CEO Patrick Pouyanné said the chances of the Paris-aligned scenario were "diminishing, even out of reach." A year earlier, the company had expected demand to peak after 2030. So the outlook has now oscillated twice in three years. The reader may draw conclusions about long-range modeling.

Why the war accelerates the shift

The 2026 report says the energy crisis triggered by the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran, which began on February 28 and choked tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, could act as an "accelerator" of the transition.

The report's evidence is specific:

• A sharp rise in EV sales across Asia, Latin America and Europe
• Higher biofuel blending mandates in multiple markets
• Hamelle's description of a "stunning acceleration" of low-carbon technology between the second quarter of 2025 and the second quarter of 2026

The International Energy Agency projects roughly 23 million EV sales in 2026, close to 30% of new cars worldwide. In the first quarter, EV sales rose about 30% in Europe, 80% in Asia-Pacific outside China and 75% in Latin America. Gasoline-only cars fell below half of global new car sales for the first time in the first half of the year, landing at 49%.

That last figure is the milestone worth underlining. Nearly one in two new cars sold worldwide now burns something other than gasoline alone, or nothing at all.

The war also paid well

The same conflict that the outlook credits with accelerating the transition has been profitable for TotalEnergies. Its third-quarter adjusted net income more than doubled to $9.1 billion, driven by a record $4.1 billion from the downstream division as refining margins hit historic highs.

The irony requires no elaboration. The company warns the war will speed the end of oil demand growth while booking record earnings from the disruption that war created. Both statements can be true. Neither is comfortable.

For refiners, the signal is concrete: historic margins paired with a demand outlook that has now turned twice toward earlier peaks argues for caution on new long-cycle conversion capacity. For upstream planners, a plateau through the 2030s still supports development drilling, but sanctioning decisions premised on post-2040 growth now carry a wider error band.

The watch item

The next datapoint is the IEA's 2026 EV sales tally against its 23 million projection, plus fourth-quarter refining margins, which will show whether TotalEnergies' downstream record was a spike or a floor. Watch also whether the 2035-2040 peak survives next year's edition. Recent history suggests a third revision is at least plausible.