Record imports in April highlights efforts to create a strategic reserve against backdrop of supply risks and regional disputes, analysts say. The country fears the instability of large producers and wants a "strategic reserve" similar to the American one.

Beijing (AsiaNews/Agencies) - China is hoarding crude at the fastest pace in at least a decade, shielding itself from supply disruptions and helping keep prices above US0 a barrel. The country imported a record volume in April as it emulates steps taken by the United States in the 1970s to create a strategic petroleum reserve, government data shows. President Xi Jinping is building stockpiles as China clashes with Vietnam over resources in the South China Sea and faces potential risks to oil sales from Russia, Africa and the Middle East because of sanctions and violence.

The purchases are helping to drive oil prices higher, according to analysts at Barclays, Citigroup and Nomura.

As China's thirst for crude grows with the expansion of its emergency stockpiles and refining, the International Energy Agency estimates that it will surpass the US as the world's largest oil consumer by 2030.

China bought more than 600,000 barrels a day of surplus crude from January to April, a record for that time of the year based on data from Chinese statistics tracked since 2004. The surplus supplies are calculated by subtracting refinery runs from the combined total of net imports and domestic production.

China had 141 million barrels of strategic reserve capacity at the end of last year, China National Petroleum Corp, the country's top energy producer, said in an annual report released in January.

 

 

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