The Brookings Foreign Policy Studies Energy Security Series

China’s blistering economic growth has made access to adequate energy supplies anincreasingly important priority. It is the world’s second largest consumer and thirdlargest producer of primary energy. From 2000 to 2005, China’s energy consump-tion rose by 60 percent, accounting for almost half of the growth in world energy con-sumption. The country is able to meet more than 90 percent of its energy needs with domestic supplies—largely because of abundant coal reserves and a coal-based economy. However, it imports almost half of the oil it consumes. Self-sufficient in oil as recently as 1993, China became the world’s second largest con-sumer of oil behind the United States in 2003. A year later it was the number thre