By Colleen Howe and Chen Aizhu
(Reuters) -China’s crude oil imports will likely rise only 1% this year, and the country’s reliance on oil imports is projected to remain at around 70% between 2026 and 2030, according to an outlook released by state energy giant China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC).
The world’s second-largest refining industry is estimated to import 559 million metric tons of crude oil this year, CNPC’s Economics and Technology Research Institute (ETRI) said on Tuesday, a level equivalent to about 11.18 million barrels per day.
The projected marginal increase is in line with analyst views that demand from the world’s top crude oil buyer is near a peak after a rare fall in 2024 because of rapid vehicle electrification and flagging economic growth.
By 2030, the share of new energy vehicles and heavy-duty trucks fuelled by natural gas will likely increase to 30% and 15%, respectively of their total fleet, according to a CNPC forecast, up from the current level of under 10% for both.
These changes are set to slash transportation fuel consumption by a fifth, or 80 million tons, from the 2024 level to 310 million tons in 2030, the group estimated.
Gasoline and diesel consumption will each fall by a quarter during the period, while aviation fuel would be the only outlier with demand expanding to 53.3 million tons, or 1.1 million bpd, in 2030, a level 30% above that of 2024.
Overall, refined fuel demand would fall by an annual average of 4.1% between 2026 and 2030, versus an average of 0.3% growth per year between 2021 and 2025, CNPC added.
China’s refinery throughput for 2025 is projected to reach 733.75 million metric tons, or 14.68 million bpd, CNPC said, which would be a 3.6% increase from 2024.
For natural gas, demand is poised to grow 6.2% this year to a record 448.5 billion cubic metres, the state major said.
Domestic gas production is forecast to rise 2.9% per annum during the five years since 2026 and reach 300 billion cubic metres in 2030.
The country’s dependence on natural gas imports is expected to decrease slightly to 45% in the five-year period, CNPC said, without giving a comparison.
China is the world’s largest importer of liquefied natural gas, with imports last year up 7.7% at 76.65 million tons, which was a three-year high.
(Reporting by Colleen Howe and Ella Cao in Beijing, Chen Aizhu in Singapore; Editing by Jason Neely, David Evans and Jamie Freed)
