Venezuela has borrowed over $50 billion from China under the financing arrangement created by late socialist leader Hugo Chavez in 2007, in which a portion of its crude and fuel sales to the world's second-biggest economy are used to pay down loans.

PetroChina Co., the nation’s biggest producer, said in March it expects oil and gas output to fall the first time in 17 years as it shuts fields that have “no hope” of turning a profit, while Cnooc Ltd. sees output slipping as much as 5.2 percent this year.

Gas demand growth in the Asian nation, which is transforming into a consumer-driven economy, decelerated to about 4 per cent last year — the slowest pace since 1998 — compared with an average growth rate of 15 per cent between 2009 and 2014.

Chinese exports of diesel began to increase rapidly in 2015, driven by a structural shift in China's economy—which is reducing diesel demand—and by reforms in China's refining sector, which are contributing to increased refinery utilization and diesel production. These two factors have pushed Chinese net diesel exports higher, to more than 300,000 barrels per day in April.

“We’re facing a chance of a lifetime to become a global pricing center for commodities,” Fang Xinghai, vice chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, said at the Shanghai Futures Exchange’s annual conference in the city on Wednesday. “On the way to realize this goal, we’ll see very intense competition. We have the advantage of trading size and economic growth, but our legislation is still not sound and we lack enough talent.”

It was the sixth time Russia has moved to the top spot as China's crude supplier, since capturing that spot for the first time in May, 2015.

China’s Yantai Xinchao Industry Co. is pursuing U.S. oil acquisitions worth as much as $1 billion in the Permian Basin, and it won’t be satisfied letting others run the show, according to the head of the company’s U.S. subsidiary.

CNPC and Mozambique’s national oil and gas company ENH have signed a cooperation framework agreement under which the two sides will reinforce cooperation in oil and gas exploration and production, and natural gas processing and marketing.

China's crude oil imports from Russia surged 52.4 percent in April from a year earlier to reach a record 1.17 million barrels per day (bpd), customs data showed on Monday, ahead of the previous record of 1.13 million bpd in December.

China is Russia’s biggest single trade partner, with its share rising to 12.8 percent from 12 percent in 2015. Even so, the overall turnover of goods fell by 26 percent last year to $68.1 billion. That means the countries are far off reaching their target of $100 billion in trade.