China: rise in crude imports primed for Asian giant.
CNPC projects crude import rise
China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) expects China's crude oil imports to increase 9.1% from a year earlier to 212 million tonnes in 2010, or 4.24 million barrels per day (bpd), a company report showed.
The forecast, however, was not consistent with the 2009 base figure released by China's Customs department that showed the world's second-largest oil user imported 203.79 million tonnes or 4.07 million bpd of crude that year. Using the Customs department figure, the growth would be about 4%.
Net oil imports, including crude and refined oil products, could rise 8.3% to 234 million tonnes, Reuters reported citing the annual report released today by CNPC's research arm.
China's apparent oil demand will grow more than 5% to 427 million tonnes this year, or 8.54 million barrels per day (bpd), the report showed.
The country is expected to add 31.5 million tonnes of crude refining capacity in 2010, raising overall capacity to 515 million tonnes or 10.3 million bpd by year end, according to the report compiled by the Research Institute of Economics and Technology of CNPC.
Domestic crude production will gain some 2% to 193 million tonnes while gas output is expected to rise to near 100 billion cubic metres.
China's crude output inched down by 0.4% to 189.5 million tonnes in 2009 and gas output gained 7.7% to 83 bcm during the same period, data from the National Bureau of Statistics show.
Ethylene production capacity is expected to increase 2.57 million tonnes from a year earlier to 15.27 million tonnes by the end of this year, and actual output could top 12 million tonnes, the CNPC report showed.
Natural gas imports will top 10 bcm in 2010, the report said.
In addition to gas imports shipped in the form of liquefied natural gas, China has established a new route of gas imports recently with the formal kickoff of the Central Asia gas pipeline that pumps the clean fuel from Turkmenistan.
Gas imports from the central Asia country are expected to amount to 5.8 bcm in 2010, according to a report by a CNPC newspaper.
China's LNG imports increased 65.8% from a year earlier to 5.53 million tonnes or some 7.7 bcm in 2009.
CNPC is the parent of listed PetroChina .