OREANDA-NEWS. February 24, 2014. China's record imports of crude oil in January have largely, and correctly, been dismissed by the market as being artificially boosted by restocking ahead of the Lunar New Year holidays.

However, there is always the danger that in attributing all the exceptional strength in imports to one factor, other influences may be discounted as well.

There is little doubt that January's surge in imports to 6.63 million barrels per day (bpd) was largely due to refiners buying ahead of the week-long holiday that started at the end of January and went into early February.

The imports were 5 percent higher than the prior record, itself achieved in December of last year.

More importantly they were 17 percent higher than the 5.66 million bpd crude imports averaged through 2013.

It's simply not possible that crude oil demand has gained by almost 1 million bpd in China, so the logical thing to expect is that February's imports will be lower.

But what if February's imports remain robust, and don't fully "pay back" the strength in January's arrivals?

Thomson Reuters Oil Analytics, which assesses crude flows based on vessel movements, expects Chinese oil imports of about 26 million tonnes in February, which is equivalent to about 6.8 million bpd.

If this forecast proves to be accurate, it would result in another record month on a barrels per day basis.

Even if the forecast is optimistic and some of the February cargoes were counted in January's arrivals by customs, the risk is still that oil imports for the first two months of 2014 may be at record levels.

However, this wouldn't automatically signal that demand growth is accelerating in China.