Data from China's General Administration of Customs shows that the country’s imports of crude oil reached 335.5 million tons in 2015, and more than doubled over the past decade. China has become the world's largest oil importer, and consequently wields great influence when it comes to international oil prices. 

Oil traders from the Middle East, South America and Russia all compete for the Chinese market. From February to April this year, China's crude oil imports exceeded 30 million tons. A large number of vessels loaded with crude oil dock at Qingdao port, and that oil is then shipped to refineries all across China. 

With imports continuing to increase, China's dependence on foreign crude oil is also rising. The dependency passed the internationally recognized warning line of 50 percent in 2009; it reached 60.6 percent in 2015. 

"China's rapid economic development has resulted in the country’s high demand for imported oil, and a rising dependency on foreign oil is inevitable. This brings some risks, but by improving transport and cooperation with international oil organizations, we are fully capable of coping with the risks," said Guo Haitao, president of the School of Business Administration of China University of Petroleum, to a reporter from The Paper. 

Until mid-2015, China's crude oil reserves stood at 26.1 million tons, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.However, based on the International Energy Agency's (IEA) recommendation that a country's oil stocks should not be less than 90 days’ worth of net imports from the past year, then a reasonable number for China would be 76 million tons. Obviously, there is a big difference between that number and the figure from 2015. 

China is currently planning a new system to handle its growing oil reserves. Private companies will be allowed to build and operate their own strategic stockpiles, while also being required to maintain national inventories for possible export.