The International Energy Agency has released a report that has officials in China racing to double check the findings. The agency claims that China’s 2009 consumption of energy sources was equal to 2.265 billion tons of oil, compared to 2.169 billion tons for the U.S.

According to the IEA statistics, China’s energy consumption has more than doubled in just under ten years, from 1.107 billion tons in 2000. A number of factors have contributed to this massive increase, including a rapidly growing population and manufacturing-based economy.

China is calling foul, and their National Bureau of Statistics says that the energy consumption last year was equal to 2.132 billion tons of oil – which is less than the International Energy Agency’s figure.

“The trend is undeniable that the Chinese energy consumption is growing very strongly – which is very legitimate, by the way, considering their population – and the energy from the OECD countries, the U.S., Europe and Japan, is stagnating. They are two major undeniable trends,” said a representative from the IEA. “There’s nothing specific from this year, it’s all the same methodologies we used before.”