Oil demand in China on the rise

China is expected to become the world’s largest oil importer in the 2020s as emerging economies, instead of developed ones claim most of the world’s energy supplies, notes the latest International Energy Agency (IEA) report “Over the next five years, almost half of global oil demand growth will come from China, and this trend is set to continue to 2035 as oil demand from the transportation sector is growing strongly in countries such as China and India,” the IEA’s November 2013 World Energy Outlook report states. It adds that in contrast, oil demand among Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries is expected to decline over the next two decades, “driven mostly by government policies on fuel efficiency and the fact that rates of vehicle ownership are already high”. China’s crude oil imports for 2013 are estimated at 289 million metric tons, up 7.3 percent year-on-year, according to the China National Petroleum Corp Economics and Technology Research Institute in Beijing, reports the Shipping Tribune. Wikipedia states that one-third of China’s oil supplies come from the African continent, mainly from Angola and Nigeria.