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Sept 8 (Reuters) - China's crude oil imports rose 0.8% in August from a year earlier as both state-owned and independent refineries maintained high operating rates.

The world's largest crude importer brought in 49.49 million metric tons of crude in August, equivalent to 11.65 million barrels per day, data from the General Administration of Customs showed on Thursday. The volume was also up 4.9% from 47.2 million tons in July, the data showed.

Total crude oil imports from January to August stood at 376.05 million tons, or 11.3 million bpd, up 2.5% from the same period last year, the customs data showed.

Operating rates at state-owned refineries remained largely unchanged at a high level of 82.55%, while the operation rate at independent refineries was 54.59%, up 3.43 percentage points from the end of July, according to consultancy Sublime China Information.

Monday's data also showed China's refined fuel exports rose 8.4% in August to 5.33 million tons from a year earlier.

Natural gas imports - including pipeline gas and liquefied natural gas - rose 0.8% year-on-year to 11.85 million tons, the data showed.

Natural gas imports from January to August were down 5.9% at 81.91 million tons; however, August imports reached the highest level in 11 months, according to Reuters records.

(Metric ton = 7.3 barrels for crude oil conversion)

(Reporting by Sam Li; Editing by Christopher Cushing)

((Sam.Li@thomsonreuters.com;))