BEIJING: China’s crude oil throughput reached a new high in June, up 3.9 percent on a daily basis from the previous high set in May, as more refineries reopened following maintenance. According to figures released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Thursday, the country processed 60.82 million tonnes of crude oil last month, or 14.8 million barrels per day (bpd).
This was up from 14.25 million barrels per day in May and 14.08 million barrels per day in June of last year.
In the first half of 2021, total throughput was 353.35 million tonnes, or 15.13 million bpd, increasing 10.7% over the same period in 2020.
For planned maintenance, Chinese refineries halted oil processing in the second quarter. According to statistics from S&P Platts, some 38 million tonnes per year of refining capacity was projected to resume online at state oil companies Sinopec and PetroChina from late May to early June. According to data compiled by China’s Sublime consultancy, average utilisation rates at independent refining plants in Shandong province were 73.81 percent as of June 30, up from 66.7 percent in late May.
Due to reduced crude oil import quotas and a crackdown on illicit quota trading, analysts at FGE predict run rates at Shandong independent refineries to fall by roughly 490,000 bpd to an average of 1.75 million bpd in the third quarter.
In a second set of allowances for 2021, China reduced crude oil import quotas to non-state refiners by 35%.
China’s oil output in June was 16.67 million tonnes, up 2.8 percent over the same month a year ago, according to NBS data. China produced 99.32 million tonnes of oil in the first half of this year, up 2.4 percent year on year. Natural gas output jumped 13.1 percent to 17.2 billion cubic metres (bcm) last month, according to the NBS, while production increased 10.9 percent to 104.5 bcm from January to June. (Muyu Xu and Shivani Singh contributed reporting; Jacqueline Wong and Richard Pullin edited the piece.)/n
