Home to one third of the world's population, China and India are essential factors in the interplay of forces that has driven global oil prices to their current highs.
The two Asian giants seem on a path of rapid economic growth that could last for decades, making it all but inevitable that their already sizeable impact on international energy markets will grow even bigger in years to come.
It all comes down to huge population numbers. The average Chinese consumes about one-tenth the energy of his US counterpart, but with 1.3 billion people, that adds up to a major factor in global demand.
China consumes 6.5 million barrels of oil every day, or 8 percent of world consumption.
Moving demand
It is forced to import more than 40 percent, and as a result it has been moving global demand together with the US for the past few years.
Similarly, India currently consumes 2.5 million barrels of oil a day, having to import close to 70 percent.
While the current figures cause concern in energy planning departments, it is the projections for the future that are triggering genuine alarm.
By 2030, China could wind up consuming 15 million barrels of oil a day, or the equivalent of the current US imports, according to a projection by the European Commission in 2003.
China already seems to be headed in that direction, having accounted for 40 percent of the global increase in oil demand over the past four years.
Facing this scenario, China has embarked on a 15-year program to bring about more diversified and less wasteful energy production, combined with a greater emphasis on nuclear and renewable energy.
Indians tend to downplay the impact they have on global demand, pointing out that the 2.5 million barrels of oil it consumes every day must be seen against global consumption of 84 million barrels.
"That's less than three percent," said Sarthak Behuria, president of Indian Oil Corp.
Some experts tend to agree, warning against exaggerating the role of the Asian economies in the current explosion of energy prices.
"They are not currently the decisive factor," said Alain Sepulchre, a researcher at the Hong Kong-based French Center for Research on Contemporary China.
Problems
"It's got much more to do with the risk of war in the Middle East, and the problems in Venezuela and Nigeria," he said.
Sanjeet Kumar Singh, vice-president of Indian investment bank ICICI Securities, argued that the spurt in oil prices in the last two to three years was to a large extent the result of the global economic boom.
Over the next decade the two Asian economies would exert greater influence on prices, but "as of now I don't think the effect is there," he said.
According to Sepulchre demand is bound to rise with the rise in the number of cars owned by Chinese and Indians.
Bruno Weymuller, the executive vice president of oil company Total, struck a similar note while visiting Beijing late last month.
Without wanting to sound alarmist, he said, there was nevertheless "a danger of a never-ending increase in consumption."
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”