Oil consumption also stagnated in the US last year. The problem is that stagnation in the West is not enough at a time of brutal growth in the places we now know about (China, India, etc...) and even more in the places nobody thinks of - the oil producers: Saudi Arabia, Iran and Russia (and Canada, too) are in the top 6 of the biggest consumption increases over the last several years. And they won't slow down - their economies are booming and gasoline is usually heavily subsidized (i.e. sold closer to production cost than to market prices).

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes