By Justin Scheck and Benoît Faucon 

LONDON--Global oil consumption last year grew faster than oil production, BP PLC said in its annual snapshot of world energy statistics.

The BP Statistical Review of Energy, unveiled Monday morning at a Moscow conference, found that world-wide, oil consumption grew 1.4%, or 1.4 million barrels a day, which is slightly above the historical average. But oil production grew by just .6%, or 560,000 barrels a day.

The imbalance points to several big trends in the industry in recent years. The shale boom has boosted production in the U.S., BP said, largely offsetting disruptions elsewhere in the world. As a result, said Christof Rühl, BP's chief economist, for the past three years, oil-price "volatility is at its lowest level since the early 1970s."

BP said that world-wide energy demand grew 2.3%, which is less than the historical average, largely because of global economic weakness. Energy consumption in emerging nations grew by 3.1%, below the long-term average. But in the "mature economies" of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, consumption grew by 1.2%--higher than average for those nations--because of strong U.S. growth. The result, BP said, is that "the gap between growth in the OECD and non-OECD narrowed to levels not seen since 2000."

BP also said that coal consumption grew by 3%, faster than any other fossil fuel, and its share of global primary energy consumption was 30.1%, the highest since 1970. Renewable energy accounted for a record 2.7% of global consumption, BP said.

Write to Justin Scheck at justin.scheck@wsj.com and Benoît Faucon at benoit.faucon@wsj.com

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