GAS GUZZLING CHINA: Take Your Positions

What Will China's Energy Demand Be In 20 Years?

By the time your kindergartener is off to college and maybe even graduating, China will consume enough oil equivalent energy as the United States and European Union…combined.  In fact, according to the International Energy Agency’s World Energy Outlook, published Nov. 8, China will consume more energy than India, Brazil and the EU. Over the next 25 years, 90% of the projected growth in global energy demand comes from non-core economies. China alone accounts for more than 30%, consolidating its position as the world’s largest energy consumer. In 2035, China consumes nearly 70% more energy than the U.S., which will be the second-largest consumer, even though by then per-capita energy consumption in China will still be less than half the level in the U.S.

China is consuming a lot of energy, but it has nearly three times as many people to consume it, too. The rates of growth in energy consumption in India, Indonesia, Brazil and the Middle East are even faster than in China in percentage terms, but definitely not in overall volume. For example, Brazil’s energy consumption is seen rising 2.2% by 2035 to 421 million tons of oil equivalent; India volume is seen rising by 3.1% to 1.46 billion tons of oil equivalent. Meanwhile, China consumption is seen rising less, by 2%. But that means 3.83 billion tons of oil equivalent.

By comparison, the U.S. consumption level is expected to rise marginally by 0.2% to 2.26 billion tons of oil equivalent. The EU demand for energy is expected to rise by about the same level to 1.9 billion tons of oil equivalent energy. Emerging economies also dominate the expansion of supply going forward: the world will rely increasingly on OPEC oil production as it grows to reach more than half of the global total in 2035. Non-core countries outside the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, or OECD, will account for more than 70% of global gas production in 2035, thanks mainly to Russia, the world’s leading natural gas producer.

Source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2011/11/12/what-will-chinas-energy-demand-be-in-two-decades/

NUTSHELL:The question is: Where will your organization be -Strategically- when China starts to consume more than Brazil, India and Europe combined? Food for thought. A simple exercise in scenario analysis will reveal so much; what are the legal, economic, political, technological implications of this trend?