Rate of Increase of Chinese Oil Consumption Slows

Some good news from China on their oil consumption, which did not grow nearly as fast as it did last year; as reported in this XINHUA news item:

China's refined oil consumption increased only by 5.6 percent year-on-year in the first nine months on stable coal supply, sharply lower than the 19.7 percent growth in the same period last year, a government report said Tuesday.

The country's coal production increased by 10.2 percent to 1.3 billion tons during this period, said the report from the National Development and Reform Commission.

China produced 136 million tons of crude oil in the first three quarters, a year-on-year increase of 4.2 percent. The crude oil import increased 10.6 percent to 94.86 million tons.

Their imports still increased significantly, they will still have a large impact on world oil production. They are the second largest consumer of oil in the world, consuming about 1/3 the quantity of the U.S.  They may have substituted some coal for oil, although they are building power plants at a very rapid pace.  There internal supplies of oil are close to peaking, so they will not be able to increase production much longer, thus their imports will increase.

Via the Energy Bulletin, "Oil consumption growth drops 14% Jan-Sept", XINHUA online, October 25, 2005

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Comments

[JM]

The head line on your post is incorrect. Oil consumption did not drop. As the body of your post makes clearer, the rate of increase has slowed. There is a big difference.

[Jim from The Energy Blog]

Oops you are so coreect JM, I have corrected the headline.