In 2006 China imported 162.87 million tons of foreign oil, up 19.6 percent compared to the previous year, which accounts for 47 percent of China’s oil needs. According to Xinhua News Agency, that dependence will grow more than double by 2025.
China needs oil for the rapid rise in car and truck usage and for its plastics industries, but it has to import oil, which means currency is flowing out of the country.
China became a net oil importer in 1993. Today, China, which consumes 7 million barrels per day, half of which is imported, is the world's second-largest oil consumer and third-largest oil importer (behind the United States and Japan). China's future in consuming oil is even more dramatic than those of the past. Following the recent surge in China's demand for petroleum, its per capita consumption of oil is still less than 8 percent of America's. Adding 5 million cars per year, China expects its auto fleet to increase from less than 25 million today to more than 125 million within 25 years. As a result, the EIA projects that China's demand for oil will more than double by 2025, reaching
14.2 million barrels per day, and more than 10.9 million barrels will be imported. As a result, China's net imports will have increased by 8 million barrels per day since 2004.
The diesel price is particularly sensitive because it accounts for one third of all Chinese oil demand. It is the main fuel used by farmers, who have gained least from economic reform, and who are most vulnerable to sudden price swings.
Internationally respected energy experts believe that worldwide oil supplies will soon peak and begin declining while worldwide demand continues to increase. So, the bad news is we face more global competition for a dwindling…more precarious…energy supply. The good news is that coal can come to the rescue. After all, the China’s coal reserves exceed the energy value of oil reserves in the entire Middle East.
China has the world’s second largest coal reserves estimated at 126 billion tonnes, next to the US. It currently ranks as the world's largest coal producer and consumer. It depends on coal for about 75 percent of its annual energy production and consumes about half the world coal production.
China is fueling its phenomenal economic growth with huge quantities of coal through a conventional and outdated coal-firing power station process. The environmental consequences have reached far beyond its borders. In fact, China is second only to the United States in greenhouse gas emissions. In 2005, China burned more than 1.2 billion tons of coal and emitted more carbon dioxide than the whole of Europe. This year, the forecast stands at
2.16 billion tons, according to Chinese government and industry figures.
The government’s science and technology department is emphasizing the importance of investing in efficient “clean coal” technologies. Additron Technologies’ ultra clean coal technology would eliminate pollutants while turning non-marketable coal and coal waste into highly efficient ultra clean fuel by either converting it into Ethanol, Synthetic Diesel or Jet fuel.