BP: China Surpasses U.S. As World's Biggest Energy Consumer

By Eyder Peralta

Published June 8, 2011 at 6:43 PM EDT

A worker walks by at an oil refinery of China's Sinopec, in Wuhan, central China's Hubei province.

According to a review of world energy use conducted by the oil company BP, China has become the world's biggest energy consumer. The Financial Times reports:

The BP publication shows that China accounted for 20.3 per cent of consumption, surpassing the US, with a 19 per cent share of the global total.

Consumption growth reached 5.6 per cent last year and demand for all forms of energy grew strongly, said BP, with energy consumption in both mature OECD economies and non-OECD countries growing at above-average rates as the economic recovery gathered pace.

Bloomberg says that the BP Statistical Review of World Energy report states that China's increase in the use of coal "pushed emissions growth to its biggest jump since 1969."

The AP reports that the United States remained the largest consumer of oil with 21 percent of the demand.