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Page added on October 12, 2013
China’s Crude Oil Imports Increase to Record
China’s daily oil imports rose to a record in September as the world’s second-largest economy expanded and demand for energy grew.
China imported a net 25.61 million metric tons of crude oil last month, according to figures on the website of the General Administration of Customs today. That’s equivalent to an average 6.26 million barrels a day, 25 percent more than in August and 2 percent greater than the previous record of 6.13 million barrels a day in July, data compiled by Bloomberg show.
China may increase its net crude imports to 6.45 million barrels a day by October, surpassing an estimated 6.23 million for the U.S., according to a forecast published on Aug. 9 by the Washington-based Energy Information Administration. A government report due on Oct. 18 may show that China’s gross domestic product grew 7.8 percent from a year earlier in the third quarter, according to a Bloomberg News survey of economists. Growth in the second quarter was 7.5 percent.
Oil imports into China have risen “as a result of expansion in the economy and its growing demand for resources,” customs spokesman Zheng Yuesheng said at a briefing in Beijing today. “It’s hard to predict how much oil China will import in the future, which will depend on the macro-economy.”
The EIA, the U.S. Energy Department’s statistical arm, predicted that Chinese net imports will reach 6.57 million barrels a day next year, with the rate for the U.S. dropping to 5.71 million.
3 Comments on "China’s Crude Oil Imports Increase to Record"
Jerry McManus on Sat, 12th Oct 2013 9:22 pm
Interesting. The US fracks its way into an unconventional oil and gas dead-end, meanwhile China happily captures what’s left of the export market. Brilliant!
I can easily see a scenario where the US blunders its way to debt default and massive devaluation of the dollar, rendering it unable to continue funding military empire and thus completing it’s decades long slide to the status of third world banana republic.
Meanwhile, China merrily continues growing its own economy with relatively abundant imported energy supplies that were once destined for OECD countries, but who have now been outbid by Asia.
BillT on Sun, 13th Oct 2013 3:52 am
And, keep in mind, Jerry, that those barrels are being bought with Charmin dollars. The Chinese are getting rid of dollars as fast as they can because they see the end of the dollar hegemony coming soon and they want as much real things of value as they can get for it in the meantime. They are slowly converting their non-US trade to other currencies and gold.
rockman on Sun, 13th Oct 2013 10:29 am
And just to add to that gloomy picture: tracking all the Chinese efforts to tie up future oil production, especially all those $100+ billion worth of refinery jv’s with the exporter, I dug into just how big their war chest was. At last count China had a foreign currency reserves in excess of $3 trillion. And growing by about $500 billion per year. An indication of how difficult it is for even Big Oil to compete with China: in the first quarter 2012 China netted as much foreign currency as ExxonMobil’s total combined budget for the next 5 years.