The oil market’s view of China is so focused on its rising demand that its domestic production receives much less attention than it deserves.
China is the world’s fourth-largest oil producer, pumping more than all the members of the Opec oil cartel barring Saudi Arabia. The International Energy Agency puts Beijing’s output at about 4.1m barrels a day, after steady growth over the past two decades. Yet the upward supply trend has suffered a sudden interruption in recent months, with China witnessing the biggest year-on-year production falls since at least 1995.
Chinese oil output peaked at about 4.3m b/d in early 2011 and fell back to almost 3.9m b/d by late last year. Although output flows have recovered somewhat, production remains about 200,000 b/d lower than a year ago, the biggest annual drop in more than 15 years, according to industry estimates.