(Reuters] – China’s imports increased by nearly 12% in May compared to a low level a year prior, but refiners are still struggling with high inventories and COVID-19 locksdowns that have weighed on fuel demand.

Data from the General Administration of Customs revealed that 45.83 million tonnes of crude oil was imported by the world’s largest buyer. That is equal to 10.79 millions barrels per daily (bpd). Compare this to the 10.5million barrels per day (bpd) in April, or to the average 10.3 million barrels/day for 2021.

The January-May Imports fell 1.7% from the previous year, to 217 million tonnes (or 10.49 million BPD).

Also, the data showed that May’s refined oil product exports fell 40% to 3.27 Million tonnes from 2005. The year-to-date decline in exports was 38.5%.

China is reducing its exports of fuel, particularly gasoline and diesel. This was despite record margins that were triggered by the global demand recovery as well as disruptions from Russia’s supplies.

China released 4.5million tonnes of quotas on refined fuel exports in China this week according to sources. The quotas were a boost to the initial issue of quotas 2022 to alleviate high domestic inventories after local demand was impacted by COVID-19 lockdowns.

Last month’s natural gas imports were 9.07million tonnes. This is a decline from May 2012. The imports in the five first months fell 9.3% to 44.91 millions tonnes.

China’s falling LNG imports were the main driver of this fall, which is expected to drop by up to 19% in 2015 due to declining domestic demand for super-chilled fuel.

1 tonne equals 7.3 barrels of crude oil conversion