Natural gas demand rises to over 600 billion cubic metres (bcm) by 2040, making China the second-largest market globally behind the United States and the largest source of global gas demand growth: the share of gas in China’s primary energy mix rises from under 6% to over 12% during this period.

Meanwhile, as output from coal-fired power plants flattens out and the use of coal in heavy industrial sectors and for residential heat goes into structural decline, China’s coal demand ends up well below today’s level. The share of coal in China’s primary energy mix shrinks by almost 20 percentage points, to around 45% in 2040.

China becomes the world’s largest consumer of oil, but no longer the largest source of oil demand growth. China is a major force in oil markets, and the gap between rising demand of 11.5 million barrels per day (mb/d) in 2016 and falling production of 4 mb/d has made China the largest oil importer in the world.

By 2030, continued increases in demand for transport fuels means that China becomes the world’s largest oil consumer, taking over from the United States. But this is also the moment when China’s growth levels off, with India projected to become the main contributor to global oil consumption growth post-2025. The rise in the passenger vehicle ownership slows; one in four cars on the road in China are electric by 2040; and stringent fuel-economy standards limit the oil consumed in the remainder of the fleet. Oil consumption for passenger vehicles in China is projected to decline post-2030.