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New UserCoal use plunges as China cuts back and US turns to gas
09 Jun 2016
BP’s latest world energy review showed 2015 had been “an annus horribilis for coal”, said the oil and gas group’s chief economist, Spencer Dale.
Global consumption and production levels for coal plunged by the biggest amount since at least 1980, while prices fell about 20 per cent.
“I would be surprised if one can think of another period when coal has fallen by a similar amount,” said Mr Dale.
China, the world’s largest coal consumer, was not the main reason for the declines, he said, though its industrial production braked sharply and it was clearly aiming to shift to cleaner sources of energy.
The US was the larger culprit as falling natural gas prices, which plunged alongside oil, saw the country generate more electricity from gas than coal for the first time.
This year, all of the major benchmarks for coal have pushed above $50 a tonne, helped by supply cuts by major producers and more recently an increase in Chinese imports.
But coal’s share of global primary energy use slumped to 29 per cent last year, the lowest since 2005, which helped produce another notable figure in BP’s annual review: a stalling in carbon dioxide emissions from energy use.
Emissions only grew 0.1 per cent in 2015 compared with the previous year, the slowest growth BP has recorded in nearly 25 years except in the immediate aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis.
The finding echoes similar data from the International Energy Agency, which said in March global emissions had stayed flat for two years in a row.
Renewable energy in the power sector, meanwhile, grew by more than 15 per cent last year, according to BP, as technology improved and costs fell.
Solar power in particular has experienced striking growth, with production increasing more than 60-fold in the space of 10 years, doubling capacity every 20 months.
Despite this, Mr Dale said the history of new forms of energy showed they often took decades to penetrate the global market meaningfully.
Source: next.ft.com