China to buy more crude oil from Nigeria – envoy

A little hope has risen for the oil and gas sector in Nigeria as the Chinese Government has pledged to buy more crude oil,following the loss of its major buyer, the US last year.

This was revealed by China’s deputy Chief of Mission in Nigeria, Mr. Zhang Bin when he paid a visit to the President Goodluck Jonathan in Abuja last week.

Zhang said that China was interested in Nigeria’s oil and that when President Goodluck Jonathan visited China in 2013, the country discussed the possibility of importing more oil from Nigeria.

“And I think we are working on this and we hope that the Nigerian side would allow us to import more”.

“Actually what we are looking at is improved economic cooperation between the two countries, we are the third largest trade partner with Nigeria,” he said.

He also said the trade volume between Nigeria and China in 2014 exceeded $16 billion, but his country was looking at the possibilities of improving the balance of trade with Nigeria.

Zhang said the figure exceeded that of 2013, which he put at $13.5 billion.

“In 2013, the trade volume between Nigeria and China was $13.5 billion and then according to our statistics, from January to November 2014, the trade volume already amounted to $16.47 billion”.

He stated further that “that means that in the first 11 months, the trade volume exceeded that of the year 2013, which indicates an increase of 35 percent over the previous year, we do have this problem of trade imbalance and the Chinese side is going all out to solve It”.

“One of the solutions is that we encourage more Chinese enterprises and companies to import more from Nigeria, especially agriculture products and also some of the manufactured products,” he said