BEIJING, Oct. 24 (Xinhua) -- China's crude oil production rose 3.2 percent year on year to 16.61 million tonnes in September, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

Photo taken on Sept. 27, 2019 shows equipment at Daqing Oilfield in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province. [Photo/Xinhua]

The growth rate was up by 0.9 percentage points from the previous month, and the country's daily average output of crude oil came in at 554,000 tonnes.

In the first nine months of the year, China's crude oil output totaled 149.84 million tonnes, up 2.5 percent from a year ago, the NBS data showed.

Imports of crude oil dropped 15.3 percent year on year to 41.05 million tonnes in September, while during the January-September period the imports totaled 387.4 million tonnes, a 6.8-percent decline from a year ago.