China's foreign oil dependence ratio exceeds 50 % for first time

Directors of China's 4 major energy research centres all agreed January 19 that the ratio of China's dependence on foreign oil has exceeded the warning line of 50 % in 2009, marking that oil imports has replaced domestic oil output to meet the majority of China's oil consumption.
China's four major energy research centres are the Research Centre for International Energy and Security under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), the Energy Research Centre under China University of Petroleum, the Research Centre for Energy and Economy under the University of International Business, and the Economics and the China Centre for Energy Economics Research under Xiamen University.

The so-called foreign oil dependence ratio commonly refers to the degree of China's dependence on foreign oil or the proportion of oil imports to China's oil consumption. Crude oil consumption generally is the sum of domestic crude oil output plus net oil imports.
China imported 203.79 mm tons of crude oil in 2009, an increase of about 25 mm tons or over 10 % year-on-year. Meanwhile, China's cumulative crude oil output for the first 11 months of 2009 stood at only 174 mm tons including 15.67 mm tons in November that was down 1.1 % year-on-year. In fact, crude oil output in most of months last year had a year-on-year decrease.

To reduce the impact of the fall in international oil prices, PetroChina, China's largest oil producer contributing over 60 % of the country's total oil output, estimated in early 2009 that its crude oil output in 2009 would be down 4 % year-on-year. Its oil output did in fact drop by 4 % year-on-year in the first three quarters.
To date, the government has yet to disclose China's domestic crude oil output data, but domestic experts who have secured the data through various channels told that domestic oil output was less than oil imports.