Chinese Government Moves To Cut Oil Importation From Nigeria

China, one of the biggest importers of Nigeria’s crude oil is planning a major cut in oil importation from Nigeria, it was learnt at the weekend. China is the second after the United States government which followed the discovery of shale gas in a bid to reduce dependence on oil importation from Nigeria.

Xinhua news agency reported that the Chinese President Xi Jinping, said China, which imports about 900,000 barrels of oil from Nigeria daily, “needs a revolution in the way it produces and consumes energy, as demand continues to rise and supply challenges mount.” 

“Although our country’s energy development has achieved great successes, we are facing challenges, including huge demand pressures, supply restraints, serious environmental losses caused by the production and consumption of energy and technological backwardness,” Xinhua quoted Xi as saying.

Xi told a meeting of Communist Party officials that China, already the world’s largest energy-consuming nation, needed to “restrain irrational energy consumption” and impose controls on overall energy use. China has already committed itself to controlling overall energy use and said in its 2011-2015 plan for the energy sector, it would strive to keep total consumption to within four billion tonnes of coal equivalent by 2015.

Nigeria’s crude oil export to the United States, which was over one million barrels per day (bpd) in December 2009, has declined to 352,000bpd, representing a loss of about 70 per cent of the United States’ market. Statistics indicate that Nigeria was the third largest supplier of crude oil to the United States in 2010, with the US accounting for 43 per cent of Nigeria’s exports.