Projected coal consumption in 2030 and 2050 underestimated, likely to be higher.

Moscow, May 30 – Global coal consumption in 2030 and 2050 will be higher than the forecasts of the International Energy Agency (IEA), while India will be one of the countries that stimulate its global consumption, according to a study by the consulting firm Yakov and Partners, available to the RIA. Novosti.

Thus, if the base scenario is implemented, the consumption of thermal coal in the world by 2030 will grow by 3% – from 6.8 billion tons in 2021 to 7 billion tons. At the same time, by 2050, the trend will reverse, and as a result, consumption will decrease by 38%, to 4.2 billion tons.

At the same time, the global consumption of coke, on the contrary, will increase over the entire period under review under any scenario due to strong growth in demand in the Asian region. By 2050, it will reach 1.1 Bt (+18%) under the base scenario, 1 Bt (+10%) under the stagnation scenario or 1.2 Bt (+29%) under the accelerated scenario.

Thus, the total demand for coal (energy and coke) by 2030 will increase by 3% to 7.9 billion tons, but by 2050 it will decrease by almost a third to 5.3 billion tons. “These estimates exceed IEA projections by about 1 billion tons and 0.5 billion tons, respectively,” the study notes.

Experts predict that the growth in coal demand will be mainly demonstrated by the rapidly growing economy of India, as well as other developing countries in Asia (mainly the Asia-Pacific region) and Africa.

India will be one of the countries that leads the global consumption of both types of coal. We estimate that by 2050 this country will increase thermal coal consumption by 30% compared to 2021 levels, and metallurgical coal consumption could jump more than 4 times. This is due to the growth of the economy and the increase in population in the European Union, on the contrary, the total demand for coal – energy and coke – will decrease by 9 times by 2050 relatively. to the level of 2021 and will reach only 48 million tons. The development of renewable energy sources and changes in a number of industries, such as the automotive industry, ”notes Dmitry Vasyukov.