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The world's second-largest economy is maturing, increasingly supported by a growing middle class whose appetite for energy is offsetting wavering demand in Chinese manufacturing, Wood Mackenzie says. Household consumption of gasoline and other petroleum products accounted for 90 percent of the country's total oil demand growth this year, compared to less than half the demand growth five years ago. Meanwhile, demand growth for diesel and other fuels used by industrial buyers has dropped from more than half to 10 percent over the same half-decade, according to energy research firm Wood Mackenzie.

Oil has maintained its growth; in fact, it's the exact same rate as 2011 despite the slowdown and the collapse in demand we saw in coal and gas, said Ann-Louise Hittle, oil market analyst at Wood Mackenzie, during a recent meeting with journalists in Houston.

Chinese car retailers sold 21.1 million vehicles last year, and about 40 percent of those were gas-guzzling SUVs and multipurpose vehicles. Wood Mackenzie estimates China's oil demand will grow between 350,000 and 450,000 barrels a day this year, the same rate as 2011.

Despite the lower [economic] growth, there's still a rising middle class, and with increasing income there's a drive for personal mobility, Hittle said.

If Wood Mackenzie's assessment is correct, China's consistent oil demand growth could be one factor that underpins the oil market's return to normalcy.

At first glance, Wood Mackenzie's conclusion appears starkly different from the recent gloomy report by the International Energy Agency, which on Tuesday predicted oil markets will remain oversupplied for at least the first half of next year, as demand slips further than expected. The report has sent crude prices lower.

One key element of the IEA's forecast was its downward revision of global oil demand growth, by 100,000 barrels a day this year. It pointed to China and India as two large players contributing to the slowdown. China, in particular, has had an outsized impact on global energy demand in recent years; crude prices fell to 12-year lows in February in part because of heightened fears that both China's economy and demand for energy were weakening.

But the IEA's revised numbers puts global oil demand growth at 1.3 million barrels a day this year the same figure Wood Mackenzie has forecast for months.

The IEA also said increased oil production from the Organization of Petro...