The Average Price of Import Crude Oil in China Down 53.2% in January

According to the statistic from Customs, China imported 12.82 million tons crude oil in January 2009, down 8% than that in the same month of 2008. The value is 3.88 billion U.S. dollars, down 57%, while the average price for import is 302.3 U.S. dollars per ton, down 53.2%. The import takes the following characters.

(1) General trade is the main type of trading. In January, China imported 9.868 million tons crude oil in the method of general trade, down 23.5% and took 77 percent in the total volume of import crude oil in China. At the same time, China imported 1.67 million tons crude oil in the method of processing trade, up 1.9 times.

(2) Saudi Arabia, Angola and Iran are the three main import countries. In January, China imported 3.136 million tons crude oil from Saudi Arabia, up 43.4%, 2.19 million tons from Angola, down 10.2% and 2.119 million tons from Iran, down 4.2%. The volume of imports from the upward three countries took 58.1% in the total volume of import crude oil in China.

(3) State-owned enterprises are the main forces. In January, the state-owned enterprises of China imported 11.85 million tons crude oil, down 9.2%, and took 92.4% in the total volume of import crude oil in China. While the foreign investment enterprises and individual enterprises imported 705000 tons and 272 respectively, up 7.9% and one times accordingly.

In January 2009, under the circumstance of the worsening of global economic, and China has a huge demand for energy consumption, so the capacity and scale of crude oil reserve needs improving. The simplicity of transport channel also makes the transport industry faces risk.

One thing that worth mentioned is that China has reached agreement on crude oil with Russia: from 2011 to 2021,Russia will export 300 million tons crude oil to China, which has significant meanings to ensure the stability of the supply of crude oil and the safety operation of Chinese economy.