French 2004 Energy Bill Jumps to 28.35 Billion Euros
Date: 27-Apr-05
Country: FRANCE
Author: Marguerita Choy
Devedjian also warned that high fossil fuel prices were hindering economic growth for the net energy importer and that France needs to boost its investment in the oil sector, particularly in refining.
"Faced with the costs of energy, there's a need that we work with our European and foreign partners in the supply of oil products," Devedjian said, presenting France's energy annual statistics.
"We need to promote investment, including partnerships with international companies on one hand, and with producing countries or national companies on the other," he added.
France's annual energy consumption was stable in 2004, up 0.7 percent to 276 million tonnes of oil equivalent, compared with economic growth of 2.3 percent.
But its energy costs represented about 1.8 percent of last year's gross domestic product (GDP), the highest since the early 1980s, with crude and refined oil accounting for a third, or 93 million tonnes of total energy consumption.
"The current crisis of fossil fuel prices is a handicap to economic growth in countries that import (fuel) such as France," Devedjian said.
ENERGY POLICY DAMPENS SHOCK
The impact of high oil prices were dampened to some extent by the strong euro, a significant draw down of gas stocks and an increase in nuclear power output.
"Our policy of energy independence fortunately reduced the effect of the hike in prices for consumers," Devedjian said.
Since the oil price shocks in the 1970s France has increased its energy independence by becoming the world's second largest nuclear power producer, behind the United States, by building 58 reactors to provide 78 percent of power production.
Electricity production last year rose marginally by 0.9 percent to 572 terawatt hours, with output from state-owned Electricite de France's [EDF.UL] nuclear reactors up 1.6 percent to 448 TWh.
In spite of higher oil prices, crude oil imports slipped 0.4 percent to 85.2 million tonnes with net oil product imports also stable at 8.3 million tonnes, leaving oil stocks 0.6 million tonnes lower at the end of 2004.
Natural gas prices, which followed oil to record highs, have forced France to lower stocks by 5.7 TWh (0.4 million toe), and to boost imports by 4.2 percent to 499 TWh, compared with a rise of 0.9 percent in the previous year.
