Eni has released the second volume of the World Oil, Gas and Renewables Review, the annual statistics report arrived at the 17th edition. The volume follows the first published in July focused on the oil market and the refining industry.

It provides data and statistics on natural gas, biofuels and new renewable energy sources (wind and solar) that are acquiring an important role in the energy landscape by leading the transition to a less carbon intensive and more sustainable energy system.

In 2017, world gas reserves decreased slightly (-0.2%).

Russia remains the top holder of gas reserves (25% of the world’s total). Among the top ten, seven are OPEC countries with 44% of the world’s total.

World gas production increased by 3.6%, the highest y-o-y increase since 2010. Pushed by new LNG plants, Australia production made a big jump (+21%) and now ranks as the world eighth producer and sixth exporter. The output of Russia, the second gas producer, strongly increased by 7.7%, but the United States is still the world’s largest natural gas producer (production increase +0.7%).

In Africa, Egypt overtook Nigeria as the second continental producer after Algeria with a steep increase of 23% thanks to Zohr field start-up. In Europe, Norway’s production hit record levels growing by 5.8%, outpacing the big drop in Netherlands (-12.8%) due to Groningen field reduction.

World gas demand has been strong in 2017 (+3.3%), growing in all regions except Americas where the United States, the first global consumer, decreased by 2.7%. Asia-Pacific led the growth with the strongest increase (+41 Bcm, +5.7%), driven by the Chinese boom (+11.7%) thanks to the Battle for Blue Skies policies supporting coal-to-gas switch. China became the third world gas importer and the second LNG importer.

Gas demand rose substantially also in several other Asian countries: Pakistan (+16.6%), Taiwan (+16.4%), Malaysia (+10.5%), Singapore (+5%) and S. Korea (+4.6%). In Europe, demand kept growing for the third year in a row with a robust +4.9%, mainly due to the power sector and weather conditions, recovering 2012 levels.

At the end of 2017, wind and solar installed generation capacity (514 and 390 GW respectively) accounted for more than 40% of all renewables and about 13% of all power sources. In 2017, solar photovoltaic capacity additions grew by about 30%, reaching a record of 92 GW, driven by declining cost of technology. Wind capacity increased by 46 GW, but additions fell by 9% vs 2016. China is keeping the leadership in terms of solar and wind installed capacity (295 GW, 33% of the world total), confirming the high grow rate of the last year (+30%). Europe y-o-y increase (+24 GW) overtook North America’s one (+15 GW), mainly thanks to new wind installations.