David Fuller's view The world may soon achieve something long dreamed of by governments and policymakers: higher economic growth without using more oil.

Rising efficiency, conservation and substitution are steadily reducing the amount of oil needed to fuel an increase in the goods and services produced around the world.

Oil demand in the rich, industrialised countries of the West already appears to have peaked and the trend in developing economies is toward an ever-smaller increase in the amount of oil consumed for every extra unit of economic growth.

Global oil intensity -- oil demand growth divided by economic growth -- has fallen by about 2 percent a year over the last decade and the decline is now accelerating, spurred by high oil prices, moves to alternative fuels and measures to curb global warming.

This does not yet mean that absolute oil consumption is falling because population growth and rising wealth in poorer parts of the world will push up oil consumption for some time.

But it does mean global oil use will eventually peak and start declining -- and "oil-less growth" may not be far away.

"The rate of decline of oil intensity will accelerate," said Eduardo Lopez, oil demand analyst at the International Energy Agency (IEA) in Paris, which advises industrialised countries.

"There is a structural change -- difficult to measure admittedly, but clear -- that demand for burning fuels is no longer what it used to be."