China April Oil Imports Rise 7.6 pct

China's imports of crude oil rose 7.6 percent in April from a year ago, customs data showed on Sunday, lifted by continued strong demand from domestic private refiners.

The high April inflows were a result of the strong appetite of small domestic independent "teapot" refineries. Beijing has granted licenses to more than 20 of them since last year to import crude for the first time.

China imported 32.58 million tonnes of crude oil in April, data from the General Administration of Customs showed, missing a Reuters forecast.

Thomson Reuters Oil Research and Forecasts had predicted that the total crude arrivals for April into China would reach 33.14 million tonnes, up from a March reading of 32.61 million tonnes.

On a daily basis, April imports were 3.1 percent higher from March to 7.92 million barrels per day (bpd).

On a net basis, after factoring in exports of 440,000 tonnes, China's April crude imports were 7.26 million bpd in April.

Armed with quotas that could make up a fifth of total Chinese crude imports, domestic independent refineries are among the bright spots in the global crude oil market as they ramped up throughput, at the same time adding to China's swelling fuel exports.

In the first four months of the year, China imported 123.7 million tonnes of crude oil, or 7.46 million bpd, up 11.8 percent over the same period a year earlier.

China also imported 2.51 million tonnes of oil products in April and exported 3.68 million tonnes, leaving net oil product exports at 1.17 million tonnes, customs data showed.

(Reporting by Winni Zhou and David Stanway; Editing by Christian Schmollinger and Paul Tait)