China to be top oil importer by 2017
Print Edition
China will surpass the United States as the world’s top oil importer by around 2017 and will need to pay US$500 billion a year for foreign crude by 2020, according to Wood Mackenzie.
The price China pays will top the peak cost ever incurred by the US of US$335 billion, with the US seen paying only US$160 billion for imports by 2020, the energy consultant said in a report released yesterday.
Wood Mackenzie estimated China’s crude imports will rise to 9.2 million barrels per day by 2020, or 70 percent of its demand, from 2.5 million bpd in 2005. Meanwhile, US imports will fall from a peak of 10.1 million bpd to 6.8 million bpd by 2020 on its booming unconventional “tight oil” output and weaker demand.
William Durbin, Wood Mackenzie’s Beijing-based president of Global Markets, said this meant that some Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries countries which focus on the US for sale, will be “compelled to shift their focus towards China.”
China’s demand growth will be powered by gasoline and diesel requirements, with the country’s total fleet of personal automobiles to reach 160 million by 2020, second only to the US, from just 20 million in 2005.
Earlier this month, the US Energy Information Administration said China is set to overtake the US as the largest net crude importer by as early as October on a monthly basis, and by next year on an annual basis.
China imported 271 million tons of crude last year worth US$221 billion, according to customs.
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