Whole cities, towns, regions and countries are in lockdown owing to the coronavirus or Covid-19 global pandemic with shutdowns stretching from the Philippines to Canada and much else in between.

Earlier this week, India – the world’s second-most populous country – initiated its lockdown to control the virus outbreak. That’s a $2.7 trillion GDP economy of over 1.3 billion people grinding to a virtual halt. With each passing day, the question on every energy forecasters‘ mind is what such lockdowns will do to crude demand.

None of the big Asian crude importers – namely China, India, Japan and South Korea – would be now be importing anywhere near the levels we saw in 2019. Consider this, India alone imports at a rate of 5 million barrels per day (bpd).

With a three-week lockdown in place, in theory India could do with nearly 100 million barrels less from the current flag end of the third quarter of 2020 well into the first month of the second quarter. Even if in practice, survey data later reveals that the burgeoning economy failed to import around 50% of the feared figure, that still equates to a devastating impact on headline consumption.

Now the International Energy Agency (IEA) has said that depending on how quickly the coronavirus pandemic is brought under control, oil demand could be a fifth less per day from its previous projection rate of around ~100 million bpd.