Man tending to sacks of coals.
Dhiraj Singh | Bloomberg | Getty Images
China and India’s growing economies will continue to fuel demand for coal even as they set ambitious renewable energy targets, according to experts.
While China is the world’s largest energy consumer, India is ranked third globally, and both countries are the top consumers of coal as they strive to fuel economic growth.
China’s share of global electricity consumption, 60% of which is generated by coal, is set to jump to one-third by 2025, compared with a quarter in 2015, according to projections by energy watchdog International Energy Agency.
India’s rapidly growing economy also means the country’s demand for energy including oil and natural gas will be significant, said managing director of energy investment management firm Tortoise Capital, Rob Thummel.
“If India, China are still growing economically at decent rates for the next decade, we’re not going to see coal demand disappearing anytime soon, globally,” Ian Roper, commodity strategist at Astris Advisory Japan KK, told CNBC.
The bullseye is on China and India, because those two countries right now use substantially more coal.
Rob Thummel
managing director of Tortoise Capital
Global coal usage in 2023 hit a record high, surpassing 8.5 billion tons for the first time, on the back of strong demand in emerging and developing countries such as India and China, IEA said in a recent report.
There are no signs of a slowdown, with the IEA saying coal consumption in India and Southeast Asia is projected to “grow significantly.”
India’s coal production rose to 893 million tons during the financial year ending March 2023, jumping nearly 15% from a year earlier. China’s raw coal production from January to November in 2023 went up by 2.9% compared with the same period in 2022.
By contrast, U.S., which is the world’s second largest consumer of coal, has seen a decrease in its usage of the fuel. According to the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial…
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