The global oil demand rose by 1.3% in 2018, led by strong growth in the United States industry. The launching of large petrochemical projects drove the product demand, which partially offset a slowdown in the growth in gasoline demand. The United States and China showed the largest overall growth, while demand fell in Japan and Korea and was stagnant in Europe. The United States showed the largest overall growth at 540 kb/d, followed by China. The strong expansion of petrochemical demand in the United States boosted consumption, which also benefited from a rise in industrial production and very strong demand for trucking services. According to the International Energy Agency, the United States may drive global oil supply growth over the next five years, overtaking Russia and challenging Saudi Arabia as the world’s leading oil producer. The gas and oil industry relies on shipping companies and third-party logistics providers to move complicated freight shipments around the world, which also involve special logistics services for the transport of dangerous goods.

Road freight transport is the prime mode of transport in Europe. Concerning road transport, the transport of dangerous goods in the European Union (EU-28) continued to increase year by year in the last five years (2013-2017), from 73 billion ton-kilometer in 2013 to more than 82 billion ton-kilometer in 2017. Between 2013 and 2017, most member states registered an increase in transport of dangerous goods. The highest increase was recorded in Slovakia (117.5 %), Sweden (86.4 %), and Slovenia and Greece registered a growth rate of more than 60%. For most of the European countries, the share of dangerous goods transport was around 4% of the total cargo. All major economies recorded figures in the range of 4 % to 6 %; only Poland, the second-largest transport industry in Europe, had a lower share (2.6 %). The countries with the lowest share of dangerous goods were Ireland, Slovakia, Lithuania, Latvia, and the Netherlands, with a share ranging between 1 % and 2 %. Cyprus had a substantially greater proportion by 23.4 %, followed by Belgium (11.1 %) and Finland (6.8 %). In almost half of the European countries, more than two-thirds of the transport of dangerous goods were performed within the national territory. In terms of commodity group, flammable liquids took over more than half of the total, followed by gases and corrosives.