China Oil Imports Will Increase 33%

China Oil Imports Will Increase 33%
by Adam Smallman
Mon, Feb 14, 2005 17:32 GMT

LONDON – China’s net oil imports in 2005 will continue growing by at least a third on the year even as the country’s economic growth tempers, a Chinese government energy advisor said Monday.

“I think it will increase to net imports of about 140 million (metric) tons,” Gao Shixian, director of the China Energy Research Institute and member of the government’s Economic Development and Reform Commission told Dow Jones Newswires on the sidelines of IP Week in London.

That figure translates to a rate of 2.8 million barrels a day.

He estimated 2004 net imports at between 100 million-120 million tons, or 2 million-2.4 million b/d.

Total consumption will rise to 340 million-350 million tons this year from 300 million tons in 2004, an increase of about 15%. That would put demand for 2005 at 7 million b/d.

Demand would keep rising steadily, to as much as 380 million tons in 2010, or 7.6 million b/d, and as high as 500 million tons, or 10 million b/d by 2020, he said.

China’s soaring thirst for oil helped underpin last year’s stunning run up in oil prices, and raised fears of a race for resources with the U.S. and other powers, a factor Gao sought to downplay.

China’s energy demand won’t destabilize oil markets because it’s not totally dependent on imports with domestic oil fields meeting more than half the country’s oil needs, he said.

“It cannot bring the oil price to roar,” he said.

China’s also pushing for energy conservation to limit its demand for ever more oil, he said.

© 2005 Dow Jones Newswires.

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