China's petroleum imports rebounded with two-digit growth in the first half year of 2006, said a spokesman with the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Tuesday.

Zheng Jingping, spokesman of the NBS said at the press conference that China imported 73.33 million tons of crude oil in the first six months, rising 15.6 percent year on year.

The imports of refined oil products reached 18.23 million tons, up 16.1 percent from the same period of last year, said Zheng.

According to statistics of the General Administration of Customs, the average price of imported crude oil in the first six months is 452.9 U.S. dollars per ton, up 33 percent year on year, and the average price of imported refined oil products is 423.3 U.S. dollars per ton, up 48 percent.

China spent about 40.9 billion U.S. dollars in importing petroleum in the first half year of 2006.

While the imports of petroleum experienced sharp rise, China saw its exports of petroleum drop by a large margin in the first six months.

China exported three million tons of crude oil, 17 percent lower than the same period of last year and exported 6.2 million tons of refined oil products, dropping 18.3 percent.

According to the statistics of the Customs, China saw a net import of crude oil of 70.33 million tons in the first six months, up 17.6 percent year on year, while the net imports of refined oil products reached 12.03 million tons, up 48.3 percent.

China saw consumption of crude oil and refined oil products drop by 0.5 percent year on year in 2005 as the net imports in that year dropped by 5.3 percent from 2004 to 136.17 million tons.

As a result, China's dependency on imported petroleum dropped by 2.2 percent from 2004 to 42.9 percent in 2005.

Source: Xinhua