China's commercial crude oil inventories rose 2.5 percent at the end of January from the end of December, the second consecutive rise after three falls, the official Xinhua News Agency's Oil, Gas and Petrochemicals newsletter reported on Monday.
Inventories of refined oil products jumped 11 percent from a month earlier, the report said.
Of the total, diesel stocks soared 25 percent while gasoline stocks slid 1.4 percent and kerosene stocks increased 1.3 percent, it said.
In a seperate statement by the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), oil product inventories at the end of January were up 1.7 million tonnes from end-December and up 1.24 million tonnes from a year earlier.
China refinery throughput was estimated to exceed 38 million tonnes in January, the Xinhua newsletter said.
In December, China's refineries processed a record high 38.72 million tonnes of crude oil, or 9.12 million barrels per day, as the world's second-largest oil consuming country churned out diesel to rebuild stocks after a shortage.
The figures echoed a statement from China's top oil refiner Sinopec earlier this month, which said its diesel stocks surged 93 percent from late last year to a record level as it boosted crude oil throughput to unprecedented highs.
The build-up in China's fuel stocks, the third month in a row after five months of drawdowns, indicated refiners continued to replenish their fuel storage tanks, suggesting China's real oil demand might not be as strong as headline figures showed.
China's apparent oil demand increased 19.1 percent year on year in December to a record 9.65 million barrels per day, Reuters calculations showed.
The country's top economic planning body, the NDRC, said China's crude oil output was 17.48 million tonnes in January, up 6.2 percent from January 2010.
Natural gas production rose 12.7 percent to 9.57 billion cubic metres, it said on its website (www.ndrc.gov.cn.).
Natural gas imports totalled 2.16 bcm, including 0.92 bcm of pipeline imports from Central Asia and 1.24 bcm of liquefied natural gas, it added.
The apparent consumption of natural gas was a record monthly high of 11.4 bcm, up 15.9 percent from January 2010, it said.
Oil product output was 21.32 million tonnes, up 10.7 percent, including diesel output of 13.37 million tonnes, which was up 11.5 percent.
It put apparent consumption of oil products at 19.36 million tonnes, up 8.7 percent. Apparent consumption of diesel was 11.7 million tonnes, up 5.5 percent. It did not explain what went into either calculation.
The NDRC figures were not directly comparable to monthly data issued by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). However, they were the first figures available for January. The NBS will not publish January figures until mid-March, when it will publish January and February figures together.
