By Li Hongmei

China has become the world' largest oil importer in December surpassing the US which had been the leading oil importer since the mid 1970s.

According to the statistics provided by the US Energy Information Administration in December, the US oil imports amounted to 5,980,000 barrels a day. For reference - in December China imported in average 6,120,000 barrels a day.

Experts attribute the decline of the US oil imports to the growing shale oil production in that country. In the last ten years the US shale oil production grew fivefold. Moreover the US authorities lifted a number of restrictions for developments of offshore fields.

This year China plans to maintain its GDP growth at 7.5%, which is enough for China to continue building up oil imports which have doubled since 2008. On the contrary in the US this figure has reduced twice in the same period.

However it is too early to say that shale oil production will make the US fully independent of oil imports, experts say. Oil imports may start growing again.
 
The US plans and experts forecast that at least in the next 5-7 years shale oil production will grow. And what will be after that is questionable. Without new resources the technology won't develop further. This may lead to a decrease of shale oil production.

So far China has managed to surpass the US in oil imports only in December. If viewing statistics throughout the whole year, we will see that Americans bought more oil than China. However industry experts say that 2013 will possibly be a game changing year.