China said on Wednesday that it will lower gasoline and diesel prices by about 3 percent from Thursday in response to declines in international crude oil prices, although the moderate cut is unlikely to be sufficient to stimulate demand much in the world's second-largest oil consumer.

The cuts - 330 yuan per tonne for gasoline and 310 yuan per tonne for diesel, according to the National Development and Reform Commission - are the first since October, and are likely to disappoint refiners hoping to benefit from falling crude costs.

Some industry analysts said they had hoped that the government would unveil a long-waited revision of its fuel-pricing scheme along with the cuts that would allow domestic fuel prices move more closely with international crude oil costs.

"The government lost a good opportunity to do that," said a Shanghai-based analyst.

Under the existing fuel-pricing formula, the government can consider lowering fuel prices if a weighted moving average price for a basket of crudes - Brent, Dubai and Cinta - falls more than 4 percent. The government has never disclosed detailed calculations, fanning speculation over when the trigger point is reached.

The price for the crude basket declined 4.01 percent on May 8 since China's last fuel price increase on March 20, according to consultancy C1 Energy.

The government has indicated that it would change the types of crude oil in the pricing system, shorten the review period and narrow the trigger range under a revised scheme.
   
Beijing last raised fuel prices by 6-7 percent, lifting gasoline and diesel rates to historical highs, but many refineries said at the time that the increase was not enough to make up for jumps in crude oil costs.
    
Brent crude slipped towards $112 on Wednesday, on track for its longest losing streak in almost two years, as political uncertainty in the debt-laden euro zone and rising oil stocks in the United States revived fuel demand concerns. Brent crude has fallen nearly 12 percent since touching $128 in March,
the highest level this year.
   
Top Chinese refineries plan to raise crude oil processing moderately in May after scaling down operations in the past two months to near three-year lows because of maintenance and high crude oil costs, Reuters polls showed. 
   
Some refinery officials have said that moves by the government to cut fuel prices would mean there was no prospect of benefiting from the recent price falls. 
   
China's apparent oil demand - crude runs plus net imports of oil products - rose 3.2 percent from a year earlier to about 9.44 million barrels per day (bpd) in March, the slowest level in five months amid a cooling economic growth, Reuters calculations from official data showed.