World Fossil Fuel Production and Primary Energy

Updated December 2022.

Fossil Fuel Production

Chart 1. Annual world fossil fuel production. The time period of the charts differ due to different time periods of the datasets. Data: BP Statistical Review of World Energy 20221, spreadsheet listed in ‘Key Downloads’. Sheets used were: 1. ‘Coal Production – Tonnes’. 2. ‘Oil Production – Barrels’. Annual figure calculated. 3. ‘Gas Production – Bcm’.
Notes:
(a) Coal is combusted for the manufacture of steel (7% of world energy sector CO₂ emissions2), and the generation of electricity (28% of world energy sector CO₂ emissions3).
(b) 1 barrel of oil is equivalent to 159 litres, or 42 US gallons.
(c) Not all oil and gas is combusted, but even the non-combusted share causes significant CO₂ emissions. “Around 15% of oil and 5% of natural gas are used as petrochemical feedstocks and in other non-combustion processes”4. “There would still be scope 1 and 2 emissions from their extraction, processing and transport,…”4. This amounts to 19% of total CO₂ emissions per barrel-of-oil-consumed solely for combustion purposes (scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions combined)5 and 24% per barrel-of-oil-equivalent for gas6.

Shares of production (or extraction) of fossil fuel by country are shown below in charts 2 to 4 (the time period of the left hand charts differ due to different time periods of the datasets).

Chart 2. Shares of coal production by country. Left hand side: Time series 1981–2021, showing only those countries that produced a 5% or greater annual share. Right hand side: Shares of coal production in year 2021, highlighting those that produced 1% or more of world total coal production in 2021. Data: BP Statistical Review of World Energy 20221, spreadsheet listed in ‘Key Downloads’. Sheet used was ‘Coal Production – Tonnes’.
Coal is combusted for the manufacture of steel (7% of world energy sector CO₂ emissions2), and the generation of electricity (28% of world energy sector CO₂ emissions7).
Chart 3. Shares of oil production by country. Left hand side: Time series 1965–2021, showing only those countries that produced a 5% or greater annual share. Right hand side: Shares of oil production in year 2021, highlighting those that produced 1% or more of world total oil production in 2021. Data: BP Statistical Review of World Energy 20221, spreadsheet listed in ‘Key Downloads’. Sheets used was ‘Oil Production – Barrels’.
Note: Not all oil and gas is combusted, but even the non-combusted share causes significant CO₂ emissions. “Around 15% of oil and 5% of natural gas are used as petrochemical feedstocks and in other non-combustion processes”4. “There would still be scope 1 and 2 emissions from their extraction, processing and transport,…”4. This amounts to 19% of total CO₂ emissions per barrel-of-oil-consumed solely for combustion purposes (scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions combined)5 and 24% per barrel-of-oil-equivalent for gas6.
Chart 4. Shares of gas production by country. Left hand side: Time series 1970–2021 showing only those countries that produced a 5% or greater annual share. Right hand side: Shares of gas production in year 2021, highlighting those that produced 1% or more of world total gas production in 2021. Data: BP Statistical Review of World Energy 20221, spreadsheet listed in ‘Key Downloads’. Sheets used was ‘Gas Production – Bcm’.
Note:Not all oil and gas is combusted, but even the non-combusted share causes significant CO₂ emissions. “Around 15% of oil and 5% of natural gas are used as petrochemical feedstocks and in other non-combustion processes”4. “There would still be scope 1 and 2 emissions from their extraction, processing and transport,…”4. This amounts to 19% of total CO₂ emissions per barrel-of-oil-consumed solely for combustion purposes (scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions combined)5 and 24% per barrel-of-oil-equivalent for gas6.

Shares of production in 2021 are repeated below, together –

Chart 5. Shares of production of coal, oil and gas by country in 2021, highlighting those producing 1% or more of the respective fuel’s 2021 world total. Data: BP Statistical Review of World Energy 20221, spreadsheet listed in ‘Key Downloads’. Sheets used were ‘Coal Production – Tonnes’, ‘Oil Production -Barrels’ and ‘Gas Production – Bcm’.
Coal is combusted for the manufacture of steel (7% of world energy sector CO₂ emissions2), and the generation of electricity (28% of world energy sector CO₂ emissions3).
Note: “Around 15% of oil and 5% of natural gas are used as petrochemical feedstocks and in other non-combustion processes”4. “There would still be scope 1 and 2 emissions from their extraction, processing and transport,…”4. This amounts to 19% of total CO₂ emissions per barrel of oil (scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions combined)5, and 24% per barrel-of-oil-equivalent for gas (scope 1, 2 and emissions combined)8.

Discussion –

Coal

China alone accounted for just over half of world coal production in 2021, and only 6 countries produced 5% or more, accounting for 85.5%:

  • China
  • India
  • Indonesia
  • the US
  • Australia
  • Russia

All these countries have been producing 5% or more for at least a decade; 3 decades in the case of China, India, the US and Australia.

11 countries produced 1% or more and accounted for 93.7%

Oil

Only 5 countries produced just over half in 2021:

  • the US
  • Saudi Arabia
  • Russia
  • Canada
  • Iraq

The US, Saudi Arabia and Russia have been producing greater than a 30% combined annual share since BP’s oil records began in 1965 (noting that this statistic includes the USSR instead of Russia prior to December 1991).

19 countries produced 1% or more in 2021, accounting for 87.8%.

Gas

Only 4 countries produced just over half in 2021:

  • the US
  • Russia
  • Iran
  • China

The US and Russia have been producing almost a 40% annual share since BP’s gas records began in 1970.

18 countries produced 1% or more in 2021, accounting for 84.4%.

In 2021, only 7 countries were responsible for producing just over half of fossil fuels:

US
China
Russia
Saudi Arabia
Canada
Iran
Iraq

And only 9 countries produced more than 5% of any single fossil fuel, together accounting for 70% of world fossil fuel production9:

CountryCoal Oil Gas
China50%4%4%
India10%1%1%
Indonesia8%1%1%
US6%18%23%
Australia6%0%4%
Russia5%12%17%
Saudi Arabia0%12%3%
Canada1%6%4%
Iran0%4%6%
Values are a country’s share of world production of coal, oil and gas respectively, in 2021, rounded to the nearest whole value.

The countries in the two lists above combined account for 72% of world fossil fuel production in 202110, but only 10 of the 198 signatories to the UN’s climate convention; the UNFCCC11.

Primary Energy

Primary energy accounts for energy supplied in its primary form, prior to any conversions such as coal to electricity. In the case of combustible fuels, quantities of embodied energy are accounted for prior to combustion. For non-combustible fuels (mainly solar, wind, nuclear and hydro), equivalents are calculated. Primary energy accounting is explained further in this website’s guide.

Annual shares

The charts below use the latest data from the IEA12 13 and BP1 14 at the time of publication.

Charts of primary energy using each dataset are shown below15. The years differ because the most recent year of the IEA’s dataset is 2020, and BP’s 2021.

BP’s data doesn’t account for solid biofuels not traded on financial markets such as dung and wood, which is used by about 2.5 billion people for residential cooking and heating16. This is shown as the significant share of biofuels and waste in the chart of the IEA’s data.

Segments in the ‘fuel category’ charts differ because of different categorisations used by the data sets17.

Chart 6a. IEA world primary energy by share in 2020. Data: IEA(2022)18 19 20.
Chart 6b. BP world primary energy by share in 2021. Data: BP Statistical Review of World Energy 20221 21 22.

Trends

Chart 7. World primary energy by annual share of fuel category, 1965 – 2021. Data: BP Statistical Review of World Energy 20221 21 22.
Chart 8. World primary energy by annual share of fuel, 1965 – 2021. Data: BP Statistical Review of World Energy 20221 21 22.
Chart 9. World primary energy by annual share of fuel category, stacked, 2000 – 2021. Data: BP Statistical Review of World Energy 20221 21 22.
Chart 10. World primary energy by annual share of fuel, stacked, 2000 – 2021. Data: BP Statistical Review of World Energy 20221 21 22.
Chart 11. Absolute values of annual world primary energy by fuel category, 1965 – 2021, in units of exajoules (EJ). Data: BP Statistical Review of World Energy 20221 21 22.
Chart 12. Absolute values of annual world primary energy by fuel, 1965 – 2021, in units of exajoules (EJ). Data: BP Statistical Review of World Energy 20221 21 22.

Chart 13 shows that since 1995, the year of the United Nations first Climate Change Conference of Parties (COP1)23, annual reductions of fossil fuels have occurred only twice – due to the Global Financial Crisis24 and COVID25. The reduction in 2020 was matched by the rebound in 2021, but Chart 14 shows that oil did not fully rebound.

Chart 13. Annual change of world primary energy by fuel category since the first United Nations Climate Change Conference of Parties23, COP1 in 1995. Data: BP Statistical Review of World Energy 20221 21 22.
Value shown at the top of columns is annual change, rounded, in units of exajoules per year.
Chart 14. Annual change of world primary energy by fuel since the first United Nations Climate Change Conference of Parties23, COP1 in 1995. Data: BP Statistical Review of World Energy 20221 21 22.
Value shown at the top of columns is annual change, rounded, in units of exajoules per year.
Footnotes
  1. https://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/energy-economics/statistical-review-of-world-energy.html(↩)(↩)(↩)(↩)(↩)(↩)(↩)(↩)(↩)(↩)(↩)(↩)(↩)(↩)(↩)
  2. https://www.iea.org/reports/iron-and-steel-technology-roadmap(↩)(↩)(↩)
  3. https://www.iea.org/reports/coal-fired-electricity states “In 2021 CO₂ emissions from coal-fired power plants rose to a record 9.7 Gt”. According to the Global Carbon Project, Global Carbon Project. (2022). Supplemental data of Global Carbon Budget 2022 (Version 1.0) [Data set]. Global Carbon Project. https://www.icos-cp.eu/science-and-impact/global-carbon-budget/2022, energy sector CO₂ emissions in 2021 totalled 14.99Gt (coal) + 11.85 (coal) + 7.93 (gas) + 0.42 (flaring) = 35.18GtCO₂, and therefore coal fired electricity generation was responsible for 9.7/35.18 = 27.6% of world energy sector CO₂ emissions.(↩)(↩)
  4. p.99 https://iea.blob.core.windows.net/assets/4315f4ed-5cb2-4264-b0ee-2054fd34c118/The_Oil_and_Gas_Industry_in_Energy_Transitions.pdf(↩)(↩)(↩)(↩)(↩)(↩)(↩)(↩)
  5. Oil scope 1 + scope 2 CO₂ emissions: “95 kilogrammes of CO₂ equivalent (kgCO₂-eq) is emitted in bringing an average barrel of oil to end-use consumers.” Oil scope 3 CO₂ emissions: “The global average array of oil products produced from a barrel of crude oil equivalent in 2018 results in around 405 kgCO₂ when combusted.”, p.30 https://iea.blob.core.windows.net/assets/4315f4ed-5cb2-4264-b0ee-2054fd34c118/The_Oil_and_Gas_Industry_in_Energy_Transitions.pdf, 95/(95+405) = 19%(↩)(↩)(↩)(↩)
  6. Gas scope 1 + scope 2 CO₂ emissions: “For natural gas, global average scope 1 and 2 emissions are around 100 kg CO2-eq/boe.”. Gas scope 3 CO₂ emissions: There is a much smaller degree of variation in CO₂ emissions from the combustion of natural gas, but on average, emissions are 320 kgCO₂/boe” p.30 https://iea.blob.core.windows.net/assets/4315f4ed-5cb2-4264-b0ee-2054fd34c118/The_Oil_and_Gas_Industry_in_Energy_Transitions.pdf, 100/(100+320) = 24%.(↩)(↩)(↩)
  7. https://www.iea.org/reports/coal-fired-electricity states “In 2021 CO₂ emissions from coal-fired power plants rose to a record 9.7 Gt”. According to the Global Carbon Project, Global Carbon Project. (2022). Supplemental data of Global Carbon Budget 2022 (Version 1.0) [Data set]. Global Carbon Project. https://www.icos-cp.eu/science-and-impact/global-carbon-budget/2022, energy sector CO₂ emissions in 2021 totalled 14.99Gt (coal) + 11.85 (coal) + 7.93 (gas) + 0.42 (flaring) = 35.18GtCO₂, and therefore coal fired electricity generation was responsible for 9.7/35.18 = 27.6% of world energy sector CO₂ emissions.(↩)
  8. Gas scope 1 + scope 2 CO₂ emissions: “For natural gas, global average scope 1 and 2 emissions are around 100 kg CO2-eq/boe.”. Gas scope 3 CO₂ emissions: There is a much smaller
    degree of variation in CO₂ emissions from the combustion of natural
    gas, but on average, emissions are 320 kgCO₂/boe” p.30 https://iea.blob.core.windows.net/assets/4315f4ed-5cb2-4264-b0ee-2054fd34c118/The_Oil_and_Gas_Industry_in_Energy_Transitions.pdf, 100/(100+320) = 24%.(↩)
  9. Refer to this site’s spreadsheet, sheet titled “World Fossil Fuel Production”, table titled “2021 Production Tally (% share)”, result titled “Total share ≥ 5%”.(↩)
  10. Refer to this site’s spreadsheet, sheet titled “World Fossil Fuel Production”, table titled “2021 Production Tally (% share)”, result titled “Total share ≥5% + Iraq”.(↩)
  11. https://unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/what-is-the-united-nations-framework-convention-on-climate-change(↩)
  12. https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/data-tools/energy-statistics-data-browser?country=WORLD&energy=Balances&year=2020(↩)
  13. The IEA label for primary energy is ‘Total Energy Supply (TES)’.(↩)
  14. The label used by BP is ‘Primary Energy Consumption’.(↩)
  15. The method used by the IEA on their own site uses their own method for TES calculations that rely on accountancy which relatively enlarges the contribution of nuclear energy, and diminishes that from other non-combustibles. This site overcomes this as explained in this website’s guide. The method of primary energy equivalency used by the IEA is the physical energy content method, which applies the following weights to non-combustible energy supplies: Nuclear = 33%, Geothermal heat = 50%, Geothermal electricity = 10%, Solar thermal heat = 100%, Solar thermal electricity = 33%, Hydro, wind, marine and solarPV = 100%. For further information see section A.II.4, Krey V., O. Masera, G. Blanford, T. Bruckner, R. Cooke, K. Fisher-Vanden, H. Haberl, E. Hertwich, E. Kriegler, D. Mueller, S. Paltsev, L. Price, S. Schlömer, D. Ürge-Vorsatz, D. van Vuuren, and T. Zwickel, 2014: Annex II: Metrics & Methodology. In: Climate Change 2014: Mitigation of Climate Change. Contribution of Working Group III to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Edenhofer, O., R. Pichs-Madruga, Y. Sokona, E. Farahani, S. Kadner, K. Seyboth, A. Adler, I. Baum, S. Brunner, P. Eickemeier, B. Kriemann, J. Savolainen, S. Schlömer, C. von Stechow, T. Zwickel and J.C. Minx (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA. https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/ipcc_wg3_ar5_annex-ii.pdf(↩)
  16. https://www.worldenergydata.org/biofuels/(↩)
  17. Biofuels in BP’s data set may not be renewable. Also there is no means to separate this from geothermal data. Therefore the segment ‘Biofuels + Other + Geothermal’ is shown separately and not grouped with ‘Wind + Solar’ to form a ‘Non-Hydro Renewables’ segment, to match that used in the chart of the IEA’s data.(↩)
  18. https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/data-browser?country=WORLD&fuel=Energy%20supply&indicator=TESbySource(↩)
  19. Substitution method of primary energy equivalency applied to non-combustible data. For more information see this website’s guide.(↩)
  20. The share of marine energy (tidal, wave, etc) is too small to show, at 0.0015%.(↩)
  21. BP does not fully account for biofuels, and these may not be carbon-neutral, as explained at https://www.worldenergydata.org/biofuels/(↩)(↩)(↩)(↩)(↩)(↩)(↩)(↩)(↩)
  22. Biofuels on this website are the summation of solid and liquid biofuels, and therefore ‘Biofuels + Other + Geothermal’ equals the summation of BP’s data for ‘Geo, Biomass and Other’ and ‘Biofuels’.(↩)(↩)(↩)(↩)(↩)(↩)(↩)(↩)(↩)
  23. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Climate_Change_conference#1995:_COP_1,_Berlin,_Germany(↩)(↩)(↩)
  24. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_crisis_of_2007%E2%80%932008(↩)
  25. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19(↩)