China imported 145.18 million tons of crude oil in 2006, up 14.5 percent from a year ago, said the General Administration of Customs on Friday.

According to newly released customs statistics, China imported 36.38 million tons of refined oil in 2006, with a year-on-year growth of 15.7 percent.

China saw a sharp decline in crude oil exports in 2006, down 21.4 percent from 2005 to 6.34 million tons.

The exports of refined oil declined by 11.9 percent to 12.35 million tons last year.
China's net imports of crude oil in 2006 totaled 138.84 million tons, up 17 percent on the previous year and net imports of refined oil were up 38 percent to 24.03 million tons.

According to the data, China spent an additional 23.8 billion U.S. dollars on importing crude oil and oil products in 2006, up 41 percent from 2005.

The rise of China's oil imports in 2006 did not affect the falling trend of the international oil price which has been occurring for several months.

According to New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) prices, the price of crude oil stood at 51.88 U.S. dollars per barrel on Thursday, the lowest price since May 2005.

According to the customs statistics, the December imports of crude oil were 11.56 million tons, down 15 percent from the previous month.

China saw its imports of crude oil hit a record high of 13.54 million tons last November.
"The rise in oil imports and decline in exports reflect the surge in China's oil consumption in 2006, driven by the booming economy," said Dong Xiucheng, Professor of the China University of Petroleum.

China's GDP continued to grow at around 10 percent last year.

Data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed that China produced 168.4 million tons of crude oil in the first 11 months, up 1.6 percent from the same period of last year.

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