Mobility increases across most major oil consumers, but Europe plateaus

London (Quantum Commodity Intelligence) - Personal mobility is continuing to rise among the world's largest fuel consuming nations, but gains are beginning to plateau in Europe, the latest data from Google showed Tuesday.

In India, which was hit by a severe second Covid-19 wave beginning in March, mobility has continued to rise rapidly, but remains far below the January 2020 baseline.

The seven-day moving average for India was up 7 percentage points on the week to a 30% shortfall versus January 2020 levels by 11 June. Mobility was down as much as 50% versus January 2020 during large parts of May.

This means Indian mobility is now back to levels last reached in late April, as the crisis unfolded but is still down around 20% points from early March levels.

New Covid cases there have fallen to around 60,000 per day, from 400,000 at the peak of the second wave. However, they are still around five times higher than the levels reached at the beginning of March.

Indian authorities implemented social distancing measures to curb the pandemic, such as the closure of non-essential shops, schools and transportation services

Europe stagnates 

European countries saw rapid increases in mobility at the end of May and in early June, but those gains appeared to plateau or even decline by mid-June with most of the easy wins already achieved as many workers plan to stay at home until September.

The British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced Monday the extension of social restrictions for another four weeks to 19 July in order to curb the rapid spread of the Covid-19 Delta variant in some parts of the country.

Americas

In North America, mobility patterns were largely unchanged on the week, at 22% above January 2020 levels in Canada, 7% above in the US and 4% below in Mexico.

In Argentina, citizens moved in greater numbers following the recent decline of new Covid cases. Mobility was up another 3 percentage points on the week to 26% below January 2020.

Mobility levels were also largely stable in Africa and the Middle East, and generally above or slightly below January 2020 levels, the same data showed.

Overall mobility is calculated as the weighted average of retail (35%), parks (25%), grocery (20%) and work (20%) movement reports from Google. The latest data is up to Friday 11 June.