China's slowing economy may threaten energy markets

After a decade of rampant growth, the Chinese economy is cooling. The way the country uses energy is changing too

China's economic growth is slowing – that much is obvious. But energy statistics hint it could be losing steam faster than meets the eye with potentially big repercussions for global energy markets. Official figures show China’s GDP expanding at a rate of 7.4% and down from 7.7% in 2013, marking its slowest pace of annual growth in 24 years. Only two years ago it was hard to find analysts who expected average GDP growth over the rest of the decade to come in beneath 8%. These days the general consensus seems to have changed to between 6% and 7%. “That we have been consistently surprised on the down side since 2010 has alerted most analysts to the possibility that we may continue to be surpri