Global primary energy consumption increased by 2.5% in 2011

The BP World Energy Statistical Yearbook 2012 issued by BP today pointed out that in 2011, global primary energy consumption increased by 2.5%, close to the historical average, and the share of emerging economies’ consumption kept rising.

According to the introduction, the BP World Energy Statistical Yearbook 2012 is based on two major themes of the world's energy supply disruption and demand growth in 2011. First, the turmoil in the Middle East has affected the supply of oil and natural gas, the most notable of which is Libya’s supply disruption, although this is only temporary. The catastrophic accident in Fukushima, Japan, caused a chain reaction to nuclear energy and other energy supplies, leading to higher energy prices in most regions. The average annual oil price exceeded US$100 per barrel for the first time.

According to the BP World Energy Statistical Yearbook, the long-term global energy trend remains the same. In 2011, the global primary energy consumption increased by 2.5%, which was basically the same as the average level in the past 10 years, far lower than the 5.1% growth rate in the previous year. The net increase in global primary energy consumption comes from emerging economies. The energy demand of the OECD countries has fallen by 0.8% over the previous year, but emerging economies have increased by 5.3%. Among them, oil consumption grew by less than 1%, which is lower than other fossil fuels. At the same time, natural gas consumption increased by 2.2%, while the average annual consumption growth rate of coal in fossil fuels was above the average, reaching 5.4% in the world and 8.4% in emerging economies. As a result of the substantial increase in production by members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, the gap in oil production in Libya and other regions was offset. Saudi Arabia, UAE and Qatar have all achieved record production.

At the same time, the development of renewable energy in 2011 was mixed. Statistics show that global biofuel production has stagnated, slightly increasing by 0.7%, that is, 10,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day, the lowest increase since 2000. As the proportion of ethanol fuel in gasoline has reached the “blending bottleneck”, the growth rate of biofuels in the United States has slowed down. Due to the poor harvest of sugar cane, Brazil has caused a significant reduction of 15.3% in biofuel production. In addition, the growth of renewable energy power generation exceeded the average level, reaching 17.7%. Among them, wind power dominates the trend, which is an increase of 25.8%. In the first half of the share of renewable energy power generation, the United States and China are major contributors to the growth of wind power generation. Due to the small base, solar energy increased by 86.3%.