Hung Chung Chih/Shutterstock Save for later Print Download Share LinkedIn Twitter Oil and gas both lost market share in China’s overall energy mix in 2022, falling casualty to high prices in the aftermath of the Ukraine crisis. And while Beijing's decision to lift its strict "zero-Covid" restrictions has prompted expectations for a broad recovery in oil and gas demand this year, the government's plan to ensure energy security also relies heavily on renewables, nuclear and coal, which are all set to grow further. The rise of electric vehicle (EV) sales will also challenge oil demand going forward. Oil and gas saw their shares in China's overall energy mix shrink by 0.6 and 0.4 percentage points, respectively, last year as Beijing cut back on expensive imports. Meanwhile, coal, renewables and nuclear together gained 1 percentage point. This put oil’s share in China’s energy mix at 17.9% and gas' share at 8.5%. Coal — the dirtiest of all fossil fuels and still the dominant energy source in China — saw its market share increase by 0.3 percentage points to 56.2%, according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). This marked the first time in at least a decade that coal’s ratio edged up while gas' receded.
