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Mix-Ansicht- China säuft uns das Ã-l weg (englisch) - Bob, 20.08.2003, 10:44
China säuft uns das Ã-l weg (englisch)
-->China crude buying soars, heads for record
Wednesday August 20, 4:29 am ET
By Chen Aizhu
SINGAPORE, Aug 20 (Reuters) - Strong economic growth is driving up China's crude imports, which are expected to reach a record volume in 2003 after jumping 30 percent between January and July from a year earlier, traders said on Wednesday.
Fuel oil imports are also surging as the world's fastest growing major economy, attracting billions of dollars in oil investment, tries to meet the energy needs of its 1.3 billion population.
Consumption is running at a more modest rate of less than nine percent, based on refinery output, but the country is still expected to overtake Japan next year as the world's second biggest oil consumer after the United States.
Customs data released on Wednesday showed China took in 50.6 million tonnes of crude in the first seven months this year, including 6.8 million tonnes in July alone (see (O/CHINA1)).
July imports were 11 percent less than in June.
China's crude imports for the whole of 2003 were on course to reach more than 80 million tonnes, 15 percent higher than 69.4 million tonnes in 2002, Beijing-based state-oil traders said.
"With strong economic growth and the momentum seen in the first seven months, I wouldn't be surprised to see crude imports this year top 80 million tonnes," said a trader with China's largest oil and gas firm, PetroChina (HKSE:0857.HK - News; NYSE:PTR - News).
The General Administration of Customs data showed China's fuel oil imports at 13.34 million tonnes in the first seven months of 2003, more than 60 percent above the same 2002 period when imports were 8.275 million tonnes.
RECORD FUEL OIL IMPORTS
July fuel oil imports of 2.67 million tonnes were the highest since China began importing the product in earnest in the mid-1990s (see (O/CHINA2)). It is now Asia's biggest fuel oil importer.
China's refineries processed 134.17 million tonnes of crude in the first seven months of 2003, a rise of 8.6 percent over the year earlier, State Statistical Bureau figures showed.
"If you look at how much crude China has processed, the 30 percent increase in crude oil imports won't look as alarming as it appears," a source at Sinopec Corp (HKSE:0386.HK - News; NYSE:SNP - News), China's second-largest oil and gas company, said.
But China's economic growth is driving it inexorably to overtake import-dependent Japan in oil consumption, the West's energy watchdog, the International Energy Agency, says.
The Paris-based organisation has forecast China's oil demand will grow 4.8 percent in 2003 to 5.19 million barrels per day.
China's oil exports are also rising sharply, although from a much lower volume base. It is Asia's biggest gasoline exporter.
Over the first seven months, crude exports rose 29 percent to 4.7 million tonnes and gasoline exports jumped 43 percent to 4.57 million tonnes.
Gas oil exports jumped 256 percent to 1.44 million tonnes, while kerosene and naphtha exports rose 30 percent and 23 percent, respectively.
International firms such as BP Plc (London:BP.L - News), ExxonMobil (NYSE:XOM - News) and Royal Dutch/Shell Group (Amsterdam:RD.AS - News; London:SHEL.L - News) are pouring billions of dollars into China as they jostle to build refineries, petrochemical plants and pipelines, and try to gain a foothold in the potentially lucrative domestic retail market.
China's thirst for petroleum is driving world growth in oil consumption this year. New car sales surged 56 percent in 2002 to exceed one million vehicles for the first time and were up almost 80 percent year-on-year in the first half of 2003.
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