Last week, the annual BP Statistical Review of World Energy was published. Among the report's findings:
The most significant development on the supply side in 2014 was undoubtedly the continuing revolution in US shale. The US recorded the largest increase in oil production in the world, becoming the first country ever to increase average annual production by at least 1 million barrels per day for three consecutive years. The US replaced Saudi Arabia as the world’s largest oil producer – a prospect unthinkable a decade ago. The growth in US shale gas in recent years has been just as startling, with the US overtaking Russia as the world’s largest producer of oil and gas.
The developments on the demand side were no less striking as the growth in energy demand slowed sharply. Global primary energy consumption increased by just 0.9% in 2014, its slowest rate of growth since the late 1990s, other than immediately after the financial crisis. This slowing was driven in part by the rebalancing of the Chinese economy away from energy intensive sectors causing the growth of energy consumption in China to slow to its lowest rate since 1998. Even so, China remained the world’s largest growth market for energy.
The report goes on to note that "[g]lobal growth in natural gas was also weak, held back by the mild European winter triggering a sharp fall in European gas consumption" with renewables being the fastest growing energy source.
Read the full report here.