20100114 Oil imports hit alarming level in China: Study

clipped from www.chinadaily.com.cn China's crude oil dependency reached alarming levels last year with more than half of the country's total oil consumption coming from abroad, latest official statistics show. Imported crude oil accounted for 52 percent of the country's total oil consumption last year Importing more than 50 percent is a globally recognized energy security alert level. Due to the country's fast economic development, increased oil imports will continue for a long time and stepping up the exploration and development of natural gas as substitute energy is very urgent China has acted only as the buyer not the seller and the surging oil price means constantly losing money. An effective way to avoid China's oil dependency is to change the domestic energy consumption pattern and to encourage the development and use of electric vehicles, because about 60 percent of the oil consumption is for vehicles we should pay more attention to how to increase the efficiency of energy consumption