In 2011, China, India, Brazil and Russia used 880 million tons of crude, a fifth of world consumption. China's share of the global figure was 11.4 percent, he said.
The country will continue to import increasing amounts of crude oil from Russia and the Middle East, said Li Li, senior analyst at the energy information consultancy ICIS C1 Energy. At the same time, it is now trying to find suppliers in other areas in the world, she said. And Africa, South America and the Caspian Sea are all expected to supply more to China in the future.
"That's especially true for South America, which is the source of 10 percent of China's crude imports and is increasing its crude exports to China by 20 percent a year," she said.
This week, the International Energy Agency predicted that the United States will become the world's largest producer of crude oil by 2020, overtaking Saudi Arabia. That, in turn, will lead international crude traders to direct their attention more to Asia, it said.
Among crude-oil markets in Asia, foreign oil companies have their eyes most on China.
"We have been shifting our business from Japan to China because China is consuming more crude in Asia, and we want to sell as much as we can to this market," said Yousef M. Al-Sulaiti, managing director of the crude oil business of Qatar International Petroleum Marketing Co Ltd, the country's national oil company.
He said up to about 80 percent of the company's crude output is sold to Asia and China has begun to buy a larger portion of that.
'Gangnam style' life of young rich in Chongqing
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