A new BP report confirms that global energy consumption growth slowed markedly last year to the lowest level since the late 1990s other than the Great Recession of 2008-09. See: Global energy consumption at new low in 2014-BP At the same time, global energy production in all its many forms, has never been higher.
The trend is driven by gains in energy efficiency (which is getting better by the day) as well as slowing global demand led by China where, as shown below, momentum indicators for April suggest GDP growth below 3% annualized, less than half the officially quoted rate.
Global primary energy demand growth slowed to 0.9% with Chinese growth at its lowest level since 1998 as its economy was rebalanced away from energy intensive sectors, BP said. China remained, however, the world’s largest market for energy.
Global oil consumption growth was slower last year at 0.8m bbl/day compared with 1.4m bbl/day in 2013. BP said that countries outside the OECD accounted for all oil consumption growth even though China consumption growth was below average.
Natural gas consumption growth was just 0.4%, well below the 10-year average of 2.4%, the review shows. EU natural gas consumption was down 11.6% mainly due, it is thought, to mild winter weather.
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