Energy producers may be anxious to put last year’s rockiness behind them, but 2014 saw some interesting shifts in global energy and production trends. BP highlighted some amazing energy facts from 2014 in its latest Statistical Review of World Energy.
- Record Middle East production fails to best U.S. boom
Oil production in the Middle East hit a record high of 28.6 million bpd last year, a 360,000 bpd jump over last year. The regional gains were tied to strong production growth in Iraq and Saudi Arabia. While record breaking production couldn’t best booming U.S. output, the Middle East still accounted for more than a third of global oil exports. About three quarters of the region’s exports travel to the Asia Pacific region.
- India posted an all-time high in energy consumption growth, taking the number two position in energy consumption growth back from the U.S
India’s energy consumption increased by 7.1 percent in 2014, reaching an all-time high and accounting for 34.7 percent of the global consumption increment in 2014. Coal accounted fr over 50 parent of India’s energy consumption with the country’s domestic coal production hitting a record high of 644 million tons last year. Last year, oil account for 28.3 percent of India’s total energy consumption while natural gas accounted for only 7.1 percent.
- China’s CO2 emissions grew by just 0.9 percent year over the year, even though the country consumes nearly a quarter of the world’s energy
China’s economic expansion has long stoked concerns over pollution levels. However, the country’s CO2 emissions grew at just a fraction of the 5.9 percent ten-year average rate. What’s even more impressive is that China managed to hold down the emission growth while it consumed nearly a quarter of the world’s energy last year.
- Russia’s primary energy output declined for the first time in five years, despite pumping a post-Soviet high of 10.8 million bpd
Russia’s energy production fell by 1.4 percent in 2014, the second decline in the last ten years. The losses were partially tied to a 4.3 percent natural gas output decline, a huge loss compared to the 0.1 percent ten year average gain. Although the country is grappling with declining gas production, Russia accounted for 10 percent of global primary energy output in 2014 and 41 percent of EU gas imports.
- The United States is not only the world’s biggest oil producer, but is also the global natural gas king
While booming crude production may have hogged the headlines last year, U.S. natural gas production shot up to a record 728.3 billion cubic meters. The gains mark the fourth straight year that U.S. producers have set a new natural gas record. Natural gas production grew by 39.2 billion cubic meters in 2014, the largest growth rate in the world last year and the second largest in U.S history. The gains helped drive natural gas imports down to 33.6 billion cubic meters in 2014, the lowest level since 1986.
If the US is the worlds largest producer then who is doing all of the work it takes to produce this? Why is the oil and gas industry loosing tens of thousands jobs and predicting more job losses later this year? This doesn’t make sense.