A Revolutionary New Stage Of China's Superpower Development In One Chart

A new Citi chart shows what the next stage of super power development is going to look like.

It involves drastically curbing your oil and gas demand — basically, China is about to overtake the U.S. as world's largest importer.

We've documented this before. But the chart, from Eric Lee, throws it into relief.

Citi

And here's Lee's take.

China looks to have overtaken the US to become the world's largest net importer of crude and petroleum products. US net oil imports have been plummeting even as China's rises, falling from a peak of over 13-m b/d in October 2006 to under 6-m b/d in December 2012.

Meanwhile, since China flipped from a net exporter to a net importer of oil in 1993, its net oil imports have risen steadily to 6.3-m b/d in January 2013, just under last May's peak.

It's amazing to think China was once a net exporter.

But who knows, in another five years they could be back to being one again...