China, India to Drive Increased Coal Demand to 2018

Bloomberg reported that according to the International Energy Agency (IEA), global coal consumption will rise by 2.3 percent per year until 2018. Last year, the agency predicted that coal use would grow by 2.6 percent per year through to 2017.

As quoted in the market news:

Countries including China and India outside the 34-nation Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which account for more than three-quarters of global coal use, are expected to drive the growth, with annual increases in consumption of 3.1 percent, down from 3.9 percent forecast last year through 2017, the IEA said.

‘Gross Domestic Product growth and electricity demand in China are projected to decouple due to intensified energy-efficient measures and structural change towards less power intensive sectors,’ the IEA said. ‘Remarkably, the projected decrease in electricity intensity of GDP leads to a reduction of coal consumption equal to the aggregated annual German and British coal consumption.’

Click here to read the full Bloomberg report.