CHINA’S energy demand is expected to peak by 2040, later than the previous forecast of 2035, as transportation fuel consumption continues to rise through the middle of this century, State-owned oil major China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC) said Wednesday.

Energy consumption in China, the world’s second-largest economy, will peak then at 4.06 billion tons of oil equivalent, up from the previous forecast of 3.75 billion tons five years prior, CNPC said. CNPC raised its forecast because it predicts transportation demand will rise through to 2050, twenty years longer than previously estimated.

China’s oil demand will reach a ceiling of 690 million tons a year, equivalent to 13.8 million barrels per day (bpd), by 2030, CNPC said. The country is the world’s second-largest oil consumer. That compares with last year’s estimate of a peak of 670 million tons a year by 2027.

Oil demand will grow at an annual rate of 2.7 percent until 2020, slowing to 1.2 percent until 2030, the report said.

The headline number indicates that Chinese energy markets will continue to set the pace globally. However, the slowdown in oil consumption raises further doubt about the future role of oil in China’s energy mix as alternative fuels take a greater share of the transportation and power generation sectors.

Gasoline demand will peak as soon as 2025, CNPC said. That would mean China’s gasoline demand would peak only shortly after the United States.

China has vowed to cap its energy consumption in 2017 in order to raise the use of cleaner fuels as part of a wider campaign to fight air pollution.

Clean energy, including renewable fuels and natural gas, will replace coal power as the largest fuel source for power generation by 2030 and account for over half of the nation’s power generation by 2045, it said. (SD-Agencies)