¡¡ BEIJING, Jan. 14 (xinhuanet) -- China will need 5.8 million barrels of oil every day in 2004, implying it would replace Japan as the world second biggest oil consumption country, according to a recent issure of Oil Market Report released by International Energy Agency (IEA) .

    The report says that in 2004 China's daily oil consumption will be 5.8 million barrels, which means 800,000 tons (one ton is about 7.3 barrels) every day. In other words, China's total oil consumption in 2004 would be about 0.3 billion tons.

    People at CNPC (China National Petroleum Corporation) said China's oil consumption was 0.25 billion tons last year. In 2004 China's need of oil will be about 2/3 of the production of Saudi Arabia, whose yearly oil output is the biggest in the world - about 0.45 billion tons, and the combined production of Iran and Kuwait.

    As for now global oil output is about 3 billion tons. America's yearly oil consumption is about 1 billion tons as compared to Japan's 0.3 billion tons. China's oil consumption this year will be about 1/10 of global oil output, second only to the United States.

(People's Daily)