Demand for oil in the United States grew at the fastest pace in the world in 2013, overtaking China for the first time since 1999, BP said in a report on Monday.
According to BP, the U.S. recorded its biggest ever annual rise in production for a second year in a row, around 1.1 million bpd.
In 2013 U.S. oil consumption grew by 400,000 bpd, China’s had the second largest growth with 390,000 bpd.
The consumption growth was led by an expansion of the U.S. industrial sector as the world’s top economy emerged from the 2008 financial crisis, BP Chief Economist Christof Ruhl said.
“It is easy to understand the U.S. – If you have a lot of cheap domestic oil that feeds into the industry, it will show up eventually in GDP growth numbers. It’s not that easy to reconcile the slowdown in Chinese energy numbers,” Ruhl said.
Economic growth in China hit a 14-year low in 2013.
