Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 8
By Huseyn Veliyev - Trend:
The demand for natural gas will be significant until 2040, and the share of this segment of the energy market in the global energy mix will increase, BP’s Chief Economist for Russia and the CIS countries Vladimir Drebentsov told reporters.
He noted that the demand for gas is growing at a much higher rate than the demand for oil and coal, and according to BP’s forecasts, the annual growth rate will be about 1.6 percent by 2040.
"The growth in global gas demand will be accompanied by an increase in the supply and consumption of liquefied natural gas. The trade in liquefied natural gas will grow rapidly and this will determine the character of the gas market. From the standpoint of the growth prospects of demand for gas consumption, there are more questions than the questions about the oil market. The reason is that while the only rivals of oil are electricity and electric cars, the gas has a lot of rivals. On the one hand, the coal consumption is a rival. However, if the policies of a number of countries will contribute to a less rapid rejection of coal consumption, the rate of gas consumption will be lower. And if we take into account the rapid development of renewable energy sources, the gas consumption can decline at all, and not increase. This uncertainty remains in the gas market,” Drebentsov said.
The expert noted that more than half of the electricity will be generated from renewable energy sources in the developed countries by 2040. And, Drebentsov said, it is possible that as early as in 10 years in many places, the electricity generation using solar batteries or wind farms will turn out to be a cheaper source of energy than gas.