Data from the International Energy Agency showing that China surpassed the U.S as the world's largest energy consumer last year are not accurate, a spokesman with China 's National Energy Administration said Tuesday.

"By our calculation, the U.S was still the world's largest energy user in 2009 (although) China was the largest primary energy producer," Zeng Yachuan told Dow Jones Newswires.

The Paris-based IEA, whose forecasts are generally regarded as bellwether indicators for the energy industry, said China consumed a total of 2,252 million metric tons of oil equivalent last year, about 4% more than the U.S. , which burned through 2,170 million tons of oil equivalent.

The oil-equivalent metric represents all forms of energy consumed, including crude oil, nuclear, coal, natural gas and renewable sources such as hydroelectric power.

China consumed a total of 3,066 million tons of coal equivalent last year, Zeng said. This is equivalent to around 2,146 million tons of oil equivalent.

Zhou Xi'an, a director with the NEA, also said earlier Tuesday at a press briefing that "the IEA (energy consumption) data can be used as a reference but are not very reliable."

He said the IEA still lacked understanding about China 's relentless efforts to conserve energy and cut carbon emissions, especially the country's aggressive expansion in clean energy development.

The IEA, which counts Japan and South Korea among its 28 members, on Tuesday rejected the Chinese government's claims.

"All the relevant sources of statistics indicate that China has surpassed the United States to become the world's largest energy consumer," IEA chief economist Fatih Birol said.

He added that Chinese energy demand would be even higher if the government had not made progress in building solar and wind power industries--measures that are helping to somewhat ease the energy intensity of China's economy.

Birol said the prospects for future Chinese energy demand growth are "incredibly strong" after the country registered rapid growth the past decade. On a per capita basis Chinese energy demand is around one-third of the average of industrialized nations, according to IEA data.

Zhou said China had outpaced the United States in clean energy expansion by hosting the world's largest installed hydropower capacity and the largest nuclear power capacity under construction. China is also seeing the fastest growth in wind power installed capacity.

This isn't the first time that data from the IEA and the Chinese authorities have painted different pictures of conditions.

In its latest monthly oil market report, published July 13, the IEA repeated its frequent criticism of energy statistics published by the Chinese authorities, in this instance citing "its concerns about Chinese data" in terms of both quality and comprehensiveness, particularly regarding independent refining activity and stocks of crude oil and oil products.

It also pointed to what seemed to be inconsistencies between China 's gross domestic product and energy use figures, arguing that "if ( China 's) oil demand data are accurate, this could suggest that GDP readings may be inflated."

In its December 2009 report, the IEA said that "Chinese apparent demand data feature some odd trends. The most glaring is the seeming mismatch between subdued gasoline demand and surging car sales," the IEA said.

The mismatch is probably related to a large degree to incomplete data, such as a lack of inventory figures and possibly missing or understated estimates from independent retailers, the agency said at the time.

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