BP Energy Report: Coal Growth to Slow Over Medium Term

Mining Weekly reported on BP’s publication ‘Energy in 2014: After a calm comes the storm.’ According to BP chief economist Spencer Dale, coal will retain a dominant share of global energy (currently around 30 percent) but he added that “its rate of growth was likely to slow over the medium term.”

As quoted in the publication:

BP reports that global coal consumption grew by just 0.4%, or 15-million tons of oil equivalent (Mtoe), in 2014, its slowest rate since the Asian crisis in 1998. Global production, meanwhile, declined by 0.7%, or 28 Mtoe. Coal prices responded by falling to their lowest level in five years.

China’s coal consumption, the review said, grew by just 0.1%, compared with 2% in 2013 and an average of almost 6% over the past ten years.  Chinese coal production fell even faster, 2.6% or 49 Mtoe.

The decline in China was partly the result of a generalised slowdown in China’s energy demand, which Dale estimated accounted for two-thirds of the slowdown in the country’s coal consumption.

But coal also lost out relative to other fuels, partly because it was disproportionately exposed to the industrial sectors most severely affected by China’s economic rebalancing, such as iron, steel and construction.

Click here to read the full article.