China's crude oil imports up 3 %

China's crude oil imports rose 3.0 percent in November from a year earlier to 23.37 million tons, or 5.71 million barrels a day (bpd), government data showed Monday. However, Imports fell 1.3 percent from October's 23.68 million tons (5.60 million bpd), according to the General Administration of Customs. Crude oil imports in January-November period went up 6.7 percent from the same period in 2011 to 247.35 million tons (5.41 million bpd). As the country's economic growth begins to pick up, China is expected to use 9.64 million bpd in the fourth quarter, which would result in the largest quarterly increase since the same period of 2010, the state-run China Daily reported last month, citing industry experts. China, the world's second-largest user of crude after the US, imported 1.9 billion barrels of the oil in 2011, an amount up 6 percent year-on-year.