China will continue to have an important role in global oil demand despite the peaking of fuel consumption in its road transportation sector amid energy transition, Vitol’s global head of research, Giovanni Serio, said on Thursday.

“The view could be that it is a driving force of oil, or it is actually a driving force of peak oil demand to the extent that the transition technologies that have been implemented in China are successful,” Serio said at the FT Asia Commodities Summit.

“So it’s important to put China in the context of oil demand globally. And we think that it’ll continue to play an important, critical role.”

Source: Reuters reported by Florence Tan, additional reporting by Colleen Howe