Crude oil current supply and demand in China

January 17, 2023

TDD-global

15672

Guide

Highlights at a glance

China ranks second in global oil demand, consuming 14.79 million barrels per day, representing 15% of the world's total. Despite high growth in consumption, China's oil reserves are limited, leading to a heavy reliance on imports, which account for 24.1% of global crude imports. The gap between China's and the U.S.'s oil consumption highlights the dynamic nature of international oil markets.

China's oil demand ranks second in the world. According to the latest data of OPEC (monthly report in December), China's crude oil consumption is 14.79 million barrels/day, accounting for 15% of the world's crude oil consumption, second only to the United States, which ranks first. There is still a certain gap between the average daily consumption of the United States and 20.54 million barrels (accounting for 20%), but it has exceeded the oil consumption of the European Union.

As an emerging economy, China has maintained a relatively high growth of crude oil consumption due to the rapid economic development, with an average year-on-year growth rate of 6.3% in the past 30 years, far higher than the overall average of 1.04% in the world. Therefore, as a major consumer of crude oil, China's crude oil import policy, domestic refining and final consumption will be transmitted from the demand side to the international crude oil market.

China's crude oil demand is highly dependent on imports

China is vast and rich in resources, but such resources as crude oil are not rich. By 2021, China's crude oil reserves are about 26.5 billion barrels, accounting for only 1.7% of the world's proven crude oil reserves. In recent years, China's crude oil production has increased year by year, but due to the low level of reserves, there is still a certain gap between the mining technology and foreign countries, and it is difficult to significantly increase the production. The average monthly output in 2022 is 17.15 million tons, an increase of 420000 tons or 2.51% year on year.

Although the total demand of the United States exceeds that of China, since the outbreak of the shale oil revolution, the United States has basically achieved a balance between supply and demand of crude oil, and only needs to import a small amount of special oil to meet the demand of refineries, but China and Europe need to rely on a large number of imports of crude oil. Among them, China's crude oil imports ranked first in the world, accounting for 24.1% of the total global imports.

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