SHANGHAI: China’s crude oil imports in November grew 14.5 percent from a year earlier to 37.04 million tons, or 9.06 million barrels a day (bpd), Chinese government data showed.
Imports also grew 19.4 percent on daily basis from October’s 7.59 million bpd, according to data released by the General Administration of Customs. The world’s second-largest oil consumer purchased 8.47 million bpd of crude oil in the first 11 months of this year, up 12.0 percent from the same period of 2016.
Over 60 percent of China’s oil consumption comes from imports. Last month, China’s Ministry of Commerce announced that the quota for non-state crude oil imports would be raised to 142 million tons for 2018, 55 percent higher than that for 2017, state-run Xinhua News Agency has reported.
The volume is equivalent to around 37 percent of the country’s crude oil imports in 2016, the report said. The Chinese government gave private refineries the green light to directly import crude oil in 2015 as the government tried to attract private capital into the largely monopolized sector.
