BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s crude oil imports will likely rise only 1% this year, and the country’s reliance on oil imports is projected to remain at around 70% between 2026 and 2030, according to an outlook released by state energy giant China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC).
The world’s second-largest refining industry is estimated to import 559 million metric tons of crude oil this year, CNPC’s Economics and Technology Research Institute (ETRI) said on Tuesday, a level equivalent to about 11.18 million barrels per day.
The projected marginal increase is in line analysts’ view that demand from the world’s top crude oil buyer is near a peak after a rare fall in 2024 as Chinese fuel demand may have peaked in 2023 because of rapid vehicle electrification and flagging economic growth.
China’s refinery throughput for 2025 is projected to reach 733.75 million metric tons (14.68 million bpd), CNPC said, which would be a 3.6% increase versus 2024.
For natural gas, demand is poised to grow 6.2% this year to a record 448.5 billion cubic metres, the state major said.
Local gas production is forecast to rise 2.9% per annum during the five years since 2026 and reach 300 billion cubic meters in 2030,
The country’s dependence on natural gas imports is expected to decrease slightly to 45% in the five-year period, CNPC said, without giving a comparison.
China is the world’s largest importer of liquefied natural gas, with imports last year up 7.7% at 76.65 million tons, which was a three-year high.
(Reporting by Colleen Howe and Ella Cao in Beijing; writing by Chen Aizhu in Singapore; editing by Jason Neely and David Evans)