The line graph below shows the oil production and consumption in China between 1982 and 2006

The graph compares how much oil was produced and consumed in China over a period of 24 years.

Overall, the consumption of oil rose sharply but the amount of oil production remained relatively stable. A considerable could be seen in the consumption, which finally overtook that for the production in 1994.

In 1982, around 2 million oil barrels were used and the production in every day, which were just merely under the amount of production. Between 1986 and 1990, the production rose to 3 million barrels daily and kept at this level for a certain period, which was 1.5 as high as the consumption level.

After 1990, the need for oil eventually was greater than the figure for the supply and continued to expand to around 6.2 million barrels per day. Such change was not seen in the supply of oil, which only provided 3.4 million barrels per day. These figures were only half of the daily consumption.