Nation's reliance on crude oil imports set to continue

Domestic firms boosting production, seeking greener alternative sources

While China has stepped up efforts to boost domestic crude oil production and is also trying to replace oil with cleaner alternatives including natural gas, biomass and renewable energy, insiders predict that the country's dependency on foreign crude oil imports will not ease in the short term.

China, the world's largest importer of crude oil and gas, imported 440 million metric tons of crude oil in 2018, a year-on-year increase of 11 percent, with its foreign oil dependency ratio reaching 69.8 percent. This reliance is expected to grow in 2019, according to China National Petroleum Corp's Economics and Technology Research Institute.