BP Raised Its Estimate of Global Energy Demand in 2030

BP on Wednesday raised its estimate of global energy demand in 2030 and predicted that shale natural gas, tight oil and biofuels will play an increasingly important role in meeting the world's energy needs. 

World energy demand will rise 36% in the next 19 years, with the growth coming almost exclusively from developing countries, to 16.72 billion mt of oil equivalent, BP said in its latest Energy Outlook 2030 report. 

The new demand estimate is 0.5% above last year's estimate of 16.63 billion mt and represents an average projected to grow of 1.6% per year over the period. 

The demand forecast is broadly in line with that published by the International Energy Agency, which in November estimated global energy demand would rise 35% from 12.7 million mt of oil equivalent in 2010 to 17.2 million mtoe in 2035. 

Growing production from unconventional sources of oil such as tight oil, oil sands and biofuels is expected to provide all of the net growth in global oil supply to 2020 and account for more than 70% of growth to 2030, BP said. 

Largely as a result if the boom in unconventional oil and flat consumption, the US will become almost self-sufficient in energy by 2030, with net imports falling by about 70%, BP said. 

US oil demand will fall by 2 million b/d to 16.5 million b/d over the outlook period, according to BP, meaning demand in China will surpass the US in 2029. 

China's oil demand grows by 7 million b/d to 17 million b/d in 2030, according to BP's estimates. Other non-OECD Asia also shows strong growth of 6 million b/d, of which almost two-thirds will come in India, BP said. 

Oil remains the slowest growing fuel over the next 20 years, BP said, with demand growing at an average of just 0.8% a year. 

Global liquids demand including biofuels and other liquids, however, is likely to rise by 16 million b/d to 104 million b/d by 2030, BP said. 

"The Outlook shows the degree to which once-accepted wisdom has been turned on its head. Fears over oil running out -- to which BP has never subscribed -- appear increasingly groundless," CEO Bob Dudley said in a statement. 

BIOFUELS 

Overall, fossil fuels will continue to dominate the global energy mix with oil, gas and coal expected to converge on market shares of around 26-28% each by 2030, BP said. 

Non-fossil fuels, including nuclear, hydro and renewables, will have a a share of around 6-7% each, in 2030, BP predicted. 

BP began publishing its long-term energy outlook for the first time in 2011, saying at the time that the forecasts had previously only been for internal strategic decision making. 

The oil major continues to publish its annual statistical energy review, an industry benchmark for historical energy data for the past 60 years. Of the fossil fuels, natural gas will remain the fastest growing fuels, BP said, with demand rising at an average of 2% a year and shale gas supplies expected to meet 37% of the growth in gas demand by 2030. 

US shale gas production growth is expected to slow after 2020 and production from other regions to increase, BP said, but in 2030, the US is still expected to account for 73% of world shale gas production. 

The fastest growing fuels over the period are renewables with growth averaging 7.6% a year until 2030, BP said. 

Including biofuels, renewables will reach a 6% share of global primary energy by 2030, up from 2% in 2011, BP estimated. 

Downstream, the need for growing refining capacity will be constrained by new supplies of biofuels (2 million b/d) and NGLs (4 million b/d) that do not need refining, BP said. 

The growing volumes of biofuel and NGL supplies will compete with refineries to meet total liquids demand growth of 16 million b/d between 2011 and 2030, limiting the increase in refinery crude runs to only 9.5 million b/d over the next 19 years, BP said. 

It said increases in processing gains and supplies of liquids derived from gas and coal are likely to add another 500,000 b/d to product supplies over the period.