China’s 2008 Energy Consumption Rises at Slowest Pace

By Winnie Zhu

Feb. 26 (Bloomberg) -- China’s energy consumption grew the least last year since the country started releasing the data in 2003 as the global financial crisis curbed factory output and slashed exports.

Energy use increased 4 percent to the equivalent of 2.85 billion metric tons of standard coal, the National Bureau of Statistics said in a statement on its Web site today. That compares with the 7.8 percent gain in 2007 and the 9.3 percent growth in 2006.

China may have an energy surplus this year as the world’s third-biggest economy heads for the deepest slowdown in almost two decades. Domestic demand for gasoline and diesel may fall in the first half because of the global recession, the National Development and Reform Commission, the top economic planning agency, said yesterday.

Crude oil consumption gained 5.1 percent to 360 million tons in 2008, the least in three years, while gas use rose 10 percent to 80.7 billion cubic meters, the statistics bureau said.

Gross domestic product expanded 6.8 percent in the fourth quarter of 2008. China’s economic growth may reach 6.7 percent this year, according to the International Monetary Fund.

Coal use increased 3 percent in 2008 to 2.74 billion tons from a year earlier while electricity consumption rose 5.6 percent to 3.45 billion megawatt-hours.

Energy use for each unit of gross domestic product fell 4.59 percent last year, the statistics bureau said, revising an earlier estimate of 4.2 percent. China aims to cut energy consumption by 20 percent in the five years to 2010.

To contact the reporter on this story: Winnie Zhu in Shanghai at Wzhu4@bloomberg.net.