China overtook the US last year to become the world's biggest energy user, the International Energy Agency revealed yesterday, a move that is expected to increase Beijing's influence on global energy markets.

Last year China consumed 2,252m tons of oil equivalent of energy from sources including coal, oil, nuclear power, natural gas and hydropower, about 4 per cent more than the US, the rich countries' watchdog said. For most of the last century, the US has been the world's largest energy user.

The IEA figures demonstrate how China's growing economy continued to fuel higher energy consumption during the global economic downturn while US energy growth stalled.

China is expected to increasingly determine how energy is used on a global scale – from the types of cars auto companies manufacture to the kinds of power plants that are built.

“There will be a big multiplier effect,” Fatih Birol, the IEA's chief economist.

China was able to clinch the top slot more quickly than expected in part because the US has over the past decade far outpaced China in using energy more efficiently. On a per-capita basis, the US still uses far more energy than China and remains less efficient than Europe.

“In 2000, the US consumed twice as much energy as China, now China consumes more than the US,” Mr Birol said.

The US had improved the efficiency with which it uses energy by 2.5 per cent annually during that time, while China managed only a 1.7 per cent annual improvement.

Although the IEA warned the data on China's energy demand last year was still preliminary, the country's ascendancy in energy use has been well established. Western policymakers have expressed concern about Beijing's aggressiveness in seeking to secure oil from Kazakhstan to Sudan and to China's growing carbon emissions.

China is already by far the world's largest user of coal. In spite of its own vast resources, its imports of thermal coal are expected to hit 105-115m tonnes this year, pushing it ahead of Japan as the world's largest coal importer. Only three years ago China was a net coal exporter.

The trend has been apparent in oil. Saudi Arabia, the world's most important oil exporter, for the first time last year sold more oil to China than the US, which for decades had been its most important customer.