China's primary energy consumption rose by 8.4 percent in 2006, six percent more than the growth rate of global consumption, according to a report released by BP on Monday.

The world consumption rose 2.4 percent last year, slowing from a rise of 3.2 percent in 2005, according to the BP Statistical Review of World Energy.

China consumed 1.7 billion tons of oil equivalent in 2006, accounting for 15.6 percent of the world's primary energy consumption, the report showed.

More energy was consumed by developing countries in 2006 while the OECD countries slowed down in energy consumption growth, said Christof Ruhl, an economist with the BP group.

The rise of global carbon emission is higher than the growth of global energy consumption in 2006, due to the sharp rise in coal consumption in the world, he said.

China consumed 350 million tons of crude oil, up 6.7 percent from 2005, while its oil output rose by 1.6 percent to 183.7 million tons in 2006. China's dependency on oil imports stood at 47 percent in 2006.

According to statistics of BP, the spot Brent price for crude oil averaged 65.14 U.S. dollars per barrel in 2006, nearly 20 percent higher than the 2005 average with price peak at above 78 U.S. dollars per barrel in last August.

The global oil consumption grew by 0.7 percent in 2006, the weakest growth since 2001 and only a half of the 10-year average, owing to the soaring oil price.

World total oil output reached 3.9 billion tons, up 0.4 percent from a year ago, according to the report.

China is also catching up in gas production and consumption. It consumed 55.6 billion cubic meters of natural gas, up 21.6 percent from 2005, and produced 58.6 billion cubic meters, a year-on-year growth of 17.2 percent.

The global natural gas consumption grew by 2.5 percent and gas output rose by 3 percent in 2006.

The world's coal consumption rose 4.5 percent in 2006, while China saw a rise of 8.7 percent in coal consumption in the same year to account for more than 70 percent of the global coal consumption increase.

China's coal consumption was 1.19 billion tons of oil equivalent in 2006, and remained self-sufficient in coal consumption with coal output reaching 1.21 billion tons of oil equivalent.

China's nuclear power output rose by 2.3 percent in 2006, and hydropower output by 5 percent, both higher than the world average growth of 1.4 percent and 3.2 percent respectively.

According to Xinhua's calculation based on BP statistics, China's coal consumption accounted for 70 percent of its total primary energy consumption, with oil consumption accounting for 20.6 percent, natural gas use 2.9 percent, hydropower use 5.6 percent and nuclear power use 0.7 percent.