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Sales of bonded bunker fuel in China rose by 803,000 tonnes, or 20.8 percent year-on-year, during the first six months of 2011, local market intelligence firm C1 Energy reports.

The country's total sales of fuel oil and marine gasoil rose to 4.66 million metric tonnes in the first half of this year, up from 3.857 million metric tonnes during the corresponding period in 2010.

Six licensed bonded bunker suppliers were all said to have achieved a steady increase in sales volumes between January and June with Sinopec Zhoushan - the Zhoushan branch of Sinopec Zhejiang Oil Products Co. - seeing the highest rise of 710,000 metric tonnes, or 89.4 percent, year-on-year.

Statistics show that bonded bunker demand rose during a period of increased cargo throughput of foreign trade at domestic ports. According to the Ministry of Transport, foreign trade cargo throughput at so called 'large-scale ports' was 1.104 billion tonnes between January and May, up by 8.2 percent from a year earlier.

Data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) shows that China’s gross domestic product (GDP) rose by 9.6 percent year-on-year in the first half of 2011.