European Union - China Energy Co-operation Conference$$$$Global Coal Production and Supply

摘要

First, a brief comment on the reserves backing up production. It is well known that the world has abundant coal reserves, but consistent statistics are hard to find! According to the BP Statistical Review of World Energy (1996), there are some 1000 billion tonnes of economically recoverable coal reserves, split equally between hard coals and sub-bituminous coals. This is equivalent to reserves of more than 250 years at current consumption levels, compared with about 45 years for oil and 67 years for gas. In other words, the reserves of coal will last more than four times longer than the combined reserves of oil and gas. After many years of steady increases in gas reserves, the total has fallen slightly in 1994 and 1995, at a time when consumption is predicted to increase rapidly. Oil reserves have remained fairly constant since 1989, with demand growth due to climb steadily, especially in Asia.