China oil demand to grow in 2016

BEIJING, China (Reuters) -- China's oil demand will grow 4.3% this year to surpass 11 MMbpd, compared to 4.8% growth last year, the country's top energy group forecast on Tuesday.

State-owned China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) sees the country's oil demand rising to 566 MM t, or 11.32 MMbpd in 2016, some 460,000 bpd higher than last year.

The forecast, in an annual report released by CNPC's research institute, also put the country's net crude imports up 7.3% this year to 7.14 MMbpd.

China, the world's second-largest oil consumer, raised crude imports by nearly 9% last year, or an additional 540,000 bpd, largely to boost government and commercial reserves as oil companies took advantage of the nearly 70% fall in global benchmark prices from mid-2014 to end-2015.

The CNPC demand forecast was higher than a recent report by the International Energy Agency (IEA) that put growth in China's demand for oil products in 2016 at 3.1%, down from the 5.6% growth it estimated for last year.

Reuters' own calculations show implied oil demand was up 3.1% to 10.63 MMbpd in 2015.

CNPC also forecast that apparent natural gas consumption would rise 7.3% to 205 Bcm in 2016, compared with growth of 5.7% in 2015, as reported by China's top central planning commission.

Refinery capacity is set to reach 14.4 MMbpd in 2016, up 1.3%, with throughput rising 5.3% to 10.98 MMbpd, CNPC said.

The capacity of China's commercial oil reserves was 315 MMbbl at the end of 2015, it said.