OREANDA-NEWS. September 22, 2011. China’s supply of oil products is sufficient after refineries maintained high processing volumes, the nation’s top planner said.

Demand for oil products, including domestic production and net imports and excluding inventory, increased 2.2 percent to 19.4 million metric tons last month from a year earlier, the National Development and Reform Commission said in a statement on its website. Gasoline demand gained 4.6 percent, and diesel rose 1.2 percent, it said. Oil demand for the first eight months of the year increased 6.1 percent.

Oil-product inventory increased by 1.64 million tons as of the end of August from a year earlier and is at “a normal level,” the statement said, without giving details.

China’s daily oil-processing volume gained 6 percent to 8.7 million barrels last month from a year earlier and was little changed from 8.86 million barrels a day in July, according to National Bureau of Statistics data last week.

The nation’s natural-gas imports almost doubled to about 20.2 billion cubic meters in the first eight months, the planner said in a separate statement on its website today. The share of imported gas in terms of total consumption gained 8 percentage points, it said. The nation’s total gas use increased 22 percent to 84.2 billion cubic meters, it said.