BEIJING: China’s apparent oil demand is expected to rise 4.6% year on year to hit 600 million mt (12.05 million b/d) in 2018, with net crude imports to increase 7.7% to 451 million mt, according to a report released Tuesday by state-owned China National Petroleum Corp.’s Economics and Technology Research Institute. China imported 281.1 million tonnes of crude in the first eight months of 2017, equivalent to 8.44 million barrels per day (bpd), according to customs data. This is up 12.3 percent on the same period in 2016, or about 950,000 bpd.
The USA is net importer of 3.4 million barrels per day. The US imports about 6.6 million barrels per day of oil and exports about 3.2 million barrels per day of product. This makes China the major contributor to global demand-growth so far this year, given that the International Energy Agency expects world oil consumption to rise 1.6 million bpd in 2017 from 2016.
