Drivers refill their cars at a gas station in Xuchang, Henan province. A Platts report said China's oil demand in June declined for the first time in three years, dropping 1.9 percent year-on-year to 36.84 million metric tons. [Photo/China Daily]

China's second-quarter GDP growth was 7.6 percent, 0.5 percentage point lower than the first quarter, the lowest in the past three years. Industrial output growth was 9.5 percent, compared with 12.1 percent in the last 12 months, and electricity generation decreased 0.9 percent year-on-year.

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The most recent figures show coal consumption, which accounts for about 70 percent of the country's total energy use, grew 2.8 percent year-on-year in the first half, a 6.6 percentage point drop compared with last year's growth rate in the same period.

Jiang Zhimin, vice-president of China National Coal Association, said coal demand will continue to fall in the second half and the oversupply situation will worsen.

Earlier this year, the Economics and Technology Research Institute under China National Petroleum Corporation, the country's biggest oil producer, said in a report that domestic oil demand would grow 5 percent to 493 million tons in 2012. The growth rate is lower than the average in the past 10 years.

Meanwhile, the country's net crude oil imports will increase 6.4 percent to 266 million tons this year.

Net oil imports by China in 2011 rose 7.7 percent to 264 million tons.

The People's Bank of China cut the benchmark interest rates in early July, the second time in a month, in an effort to increase lending.

Signs that the stimulus efforts might be working came with a doubling of new loans from China's four biggest banks to 50 billion yuan ($7.9 billion) in the first half of July as compared with the first half of June, according to Platts.

dujuan@chinadaily.com.cn

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