Think of all the fuel that is being saved in Europe - will oil prices drop?

[ThomWV]

With all those aircraft grounded one would expect an immediate, and large, drop in fuel consumption. That drop in demand, and make no mistake, aircraft use lots and lots of fuel, should have a corresponding effect on world wide oil prices. As long as the ash stays in the air the planes will stay out of the air and if there is a god in economic heaven this should cause a major decrease in crude oil prices. These aircraft groundings could be saving millions of barrels of fuel from being burned daily and if its not being burned in the air it doesn't have to be pumped out of the ground. Not such a bad thing.

On Edit: Notice that in this country if there is a fire in a trash can at a refinery the world wide price of oil jumps a dollar the next day as a result.

[northernlights]

1. unless enough ash spews to give us a few very cold winters

which has happened with major eruptions in the past.

I'm bracing for a very cold winter next year.

[HereSince1628]

2. At least Europe has passenger rail infrastructure...

If it happened in the US there would be an immediate SPIKE in gasoline consumption as first class business travel turned to luxurious private cars, and typical business class folks each drove their own mid-sized gas guzzler around the country.

[KG]

3. recent history shows little correlation between prices and supply. speculation seems to be a bigger

factor.

[stray cat]

4. Food, medicine and supplies are not flying into countries

[ThomWV]

5. Nowhere in the effected area would that have an effect on availability - trucks and boats work fine.

[muriel_volestrangler]

6. It's about 15% of EU transport energy usage

up from the 13% quoted here a few years ago: http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/statistics_explained/index.php/Transport_energy_consumption_and_emissions#Air_transport_second_largest_energy_consumer_after_road_transport

And Europe probably uses about 20% of the world's oil. So this is about 3% of the world's oil demand - less, if this goes on, because more oil will be used for alternative transport. But it'll depend on how long it goes on, really. Since no-one knows, they can't immediately know what the future impact on demand will be - unlike an oil refinery fire, where the impact of supply is easily quantifiable.