* Refined copper imports jump to record 329,311 tonnes
* Iron ore imports at record, steel exports at 3-yr low
* Crude oil imports in deep two-month dive on tank tops
* Stockbuilding, or tank tops, drives trade extremes
By Polly Yam and Jim Bai
BEIJING, March 11 (Reuters) - China imported more copper and iron ore than ever before in February but crude oil imports stagnated, as inventory balancing clouded the view of real raw material demand from the world's third-largest economy.
China's rapid economic growth drove a huge commodities boom that crashed late last year when demand for its exports slowed, leaving stockpiles of unwanted raw materials and forcing heavy industry to slash production.
That process seems to have worked quickest in the metals industry, forcing steel mills and copper fabricators to step up purchases dramatically last month. At the same time Beijing's reserves agency scooped up base metals at bargain prices.
That background has tempered the response to news of a record 329,311 tonnes of overall copper imports and a massive 46.7 million tonnes of iron ore imported last month, both of which made up for unexpectedly weak January purchases, according to data from China's customs authority on Wednesday.
"This is a huge figure (for copper imports). But I think at least 200,000 tonnes of copper in the February imports went to the state warehouse as strategic reserves, given the weak domestic demand," said Liu Xu, analyst with China International Futures in Shenzhen.
Others disagree.
"You can't say that the big increase in copper imports is just a result of the decision to boost state stockpiles... Domestic demand still remains much stronger than international demand," said Wang Feng, analyst with Everbright Securities.
To further muddy the waters, China's economic data has been thrown into disarray by the Lunar New Year holiday, which fell in February last year but January this year, distorting comparisons which might help paint a clearer picture. Output data for both months will be released on Thursday.
In one sign of a possible pick-up in industrial demand, Industry Minister Li Yizhong said on Tuesday that China used 4 percent more electricity in February than a year ago, an uptick after several months of falling power demand.
A FULL TANK?
But another barometer of economic health -- imports of crude oil -- looked just as sickly in February as in January, stagnating at 3.1 million barrels per day, 15 percent less than February 2008. Combined, it was the biggest two-month fall in imports since the start of 2005.
One possible reading is that refiners -- and the government -- have simply run out of room to store more oil, despite Beijing's call to stock up key resources this year and a new fuel price scheme that encourages refiners to ramp up operations.
"We started to fill up tanks when crude was around $80 last October, but who then expected the economic crisis to become so bad?" said a trader with Sinopec, China's biggest refiner.
"Now the domestic demand is weak, and also we don't have that many storage tanks available, why should we keep pumping in?"
However a rebound in imports of refined fuels offered a small sign of hope for underlying demand in the world's second-largest oil consuming country, where oil demand contracted in the last quarter of 2008.
Another of China's major resources imports, iron ore, hit a record volume as steel makers raced to produce, despite volumes of exported steel products plunging to a 38-month low.
Neither iron ore nor steel are not part of any government buying plan, so demand is driven by the companies. Even so, the level of activity may not mean demand is coming back.
"The surge in iron ore imports was due to a stabilised steel market in China in January that encouraged steel mills to resume production, but iron ore inventories had been largely run down after months of slim imports," said Henry Liu, an analyst at Macquarie Bank.
The need to restock had caused freight rates <.BADI> to surge at the start of this year, lending support to the view that China was rebounding from its slowdown.
But Wu Xichun, honorary chairman of the China Iron & Steel Association, warned at an internal meeting of the industry body last month that steelmakers are blindly rushing back to full production, at risk of flooding the market with unwanted steel.
"Demand has not yet recovered and there has been no apparent effect from government policies aimed at boosting domestic consumption, but the extra crude steel output from the mills is incredible," he said. (Additional reporting by Eadie Chen, Alfred Cang, Chen Aizhu, Rujun Shen and Niu Shuping)