China's energy consumption growth rate reduced from 15.5 percent in 2004 to 9.5 percent last year, while the country maintained a 9.9 percent economic growth rate in 2005.

A joint press conference held here Friday by British Petroleum (BP), the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) and the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said China has become the world's biggest coal producer and consumer in 2004 after it successfully solved the problem of insufficient supply of coal used for generating electricity.

Last year, China's coal consumption grew 10.9 percent, which was relatively low compared to the 14.4 percent growth rate in 2004.

China is also the world's biggest hydroelectricity producer, said a press release of the conference.

In 2005, the global hydroelectricity production grew 4.2 percent mainly thanks to the strong growth of China's hydroelectricity production.

The press release for the launch of the BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2006 and China Energy Statistical Yearbook 2005 said the world's primary energy consumption grew 2.7 percent in 2005, a bit lower than the 4.4 percent increase rate in 2004. However, the energy consumption growth rate was still higher than the world average level in the past decade.

The primary energy consumption growth rate in the Asian Pacific region reached 5.8 percent last year, the highest in the world, the press release said.

At the press conference, BP (China) Chief Executive Gary Dirks said that wise investment decisions and stipulation of policies depend on high quality information and data.

Energy prices have kept rising for three years, said BP Chief Executive John Browne. He pointed out that despite energy price rise, short supply of crude oil and natural gas has not actually occurred.

The price increase was mainly due to decreased production, the conflicts in the Middle East, regional disputes and increasing interest of investors in energy resources, he noted.

Last year, the world oil consumption was reduced by 1.8 million tons per day to stand at 1 million tons per day, mainly as a result of the decreasing oil consumption of the United States and China, as well as the weak oil consumption of the Asian and Pacific region, the press release said.

In 2005, it said, the world oil production grew by 889,000 tons per day, up 1 percent from 2004. The increase was almost all attributed to oil production increase of OPEC. However, the increase was below the expectations due to several factors, such as the security issue in Iraq. hurricane in the United States and falling oil output in the North Sea.

Editor: Yan