Soaring oil price on world market has made Chinese companies spend an additional US$15.2 billion on buying oil from abroad last year, according to figures released by the General Administration of Customs on Sunday.

 

The administration statistics showed that the price of imported crude oil stood at US$457.44 per ton last year, up US$81.14 from a year earlier.

 

China imported 145.18 million tons of crude oil last year, a year-on-year increase of 14.5 percent, statistics showed.

 

"If calculated at the price of 2005, Chinese companies spent an extra US$1.78 billion on crude oil import in 2006," said the administration.

 

Statistics showed that the average price for refined oil products went up US$95.77 per ton in 2006 compared with the 2005 figure.

 

China's import of oil products went up 15.7 percent to 36.38 million tons last year, resulting in extra expenses of US$3.48 billion.

 

China is the third largest oil importer in the world after the United State and Japan.

 

(Xinhua News Agency January 15, 2007)