China’s oil and gas imports continued to climb in February

According to a Reuters report on March 8, the agency quoted customs data to report that China’s imports of crude oil and natural gas continued to grow in February, although it had reached a record high a few months ago.

Crude oil imports amounted to 39.22 million tons, or 10.23 million barrels per day, up 21.6% year-on-year, and exceeded 10 million tons for the fourth consecutive month. The big increase at the end of 2018 was the result of the eagerness of independent refiners to fill import quotas by the end of the year. But now, even though the quotas issued by the Ministry of Commerce in January are low, imports are still strong.

China’s Customs data show that the total import volume of natural gas (liquefied natural gas and pipeline traffic) was 7.55 million tons last month, down from 9.81 million tons in January, but up 8.8% from February 2018.

For more than a month, as Japan continues to restart its nuclear reactor, China is expected to become the world’s largest importer of liquefied natural gas. Restarting its nuclear reactor will have a negative impact on Japan’s import of liquefied natural gas. It is predicted that China will become the largest consumer of imported liquefied natural gas in 2022.