China’s Five-Year Plan Focuses on Oil Stability, Gas and Reserves Growth

China set an annual oil output target of 200 million metric tons (4 million barrels per day) in its next five-year plan on Thursday, a level it already surpassed last year, as the country also pledged to expand the size of its undisclosed strategic oil reserves.

The target extends the goal set by China’s National Energy Administration in 2022 to lift output to 200 million tonnes by 2025. It is lower however than last year’s record 216 million tonnes, reached after a seven-year campaign to reverse falling production.

The decision to set a target that prioritises maintenance over growth points to the growing difficulty of pumping more oil in a country where mature wells are drying up, newer ones are deeper and more costly, and the nascent development of shale oil resources proves geologically challenging.

Output is peaking as consumption is set to do the same. China also pledged in the plan to hit peak domestic oil consumption by 2030, a drive helped by the rapid electrification of cars and trucks across the country.

However on