NEA: China’s gasoline consumption growth to slow

China’s gasoline consumption growth is expected to slow this year, as Beijing promotes the use of fuel-efficient vehicles and as attempts to reduce traffic and air pollution problems potentially reduce car use and sales, the National Energy Administration (NEA) said. Jet fuel consumption will likely keep rising rapidly due to increasing air travel and expansion of local airports. Diesel fuel demand in the first quarter would likely be supported by industrial users, who will continue to have to rely on diesel-fed generators to secure enough electricity, as frozen power tariffs and high coal costs could cause shortages in electricity supply. NEA said apparent oil demand increased 12.3% from a year earlier to 449 million tons in 2010, or 8.98 million barrels per day. It did not provide a forecast for 2011. (January 28, 2011)