What this means is China can flatten the demand much faster as they have a way to create synthetic oil. They may continue to buy oil as long as prices are reasonable.
This reminds me of The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power
Book by Daniel Yergin. Germany created synthetic oil but it was too expensive, resource-intensive, they couldn't make enough of it economically at the scale they needed. They had no choice but to go to war for fossil fuels which they don't have access to.
I wonder how the unit economics are working out for China.
I don't think that Germany had no choice, because Germany scaled synthetic oil production a lot during WWII:
"Being petroleum-poor but coal-rich, Germany used the process during World War II to produce ersatz (replacement) fuels. FT production accounted for an estimated 9% of German war production of fuels and 25% of the automobile fuel."
This reminds me of The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power Book by Daniel Yergin. Germany created synthetic oil but it was too expensive, resource-intensive, they couldn't make enough of it economically at the scale they needed. They had no choice but to go to war for fossil fuels which they don't have access to.
I wonder how the unit economics are working out for China.