New research from global energy consultant Wood Mackenzie shows China's demand for crude oil is vastly outstripping domestic sources of supply, resulting in rising Chinese imports of crude oil at the same time as US oil imports are expected to fall.
This may help assuage fears in the oil industry that oil prices could fall over the medium term as US production of tight oil rapidly increases. According to Wood Mackenzie's estimates, US crude imports will fall to around 6.8m barrels of oil a day (bopd) by 2020 from a peak of 10.1m bopd. But this will be more than offset by rising Chinese imports, which are expected to rise from 2.5m bopd in 2005 to 9.2m bopd by 2020.
In fact, Wood Mackenzie expects China to spend $500bn (£320bn) a year on oil imports by 2020, far outstripping the peak cost incurred by the US of $335bn, due to higher prices. William Durbin, Wood Mackenzie's Beijing-based president of global markets, says "China will look towards Opec supply more as the US relies on it less".
