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China’s crude throughput fell slightly in December due to some maintenance works toward the year-end, the latest industry data and information collected by S&P Global Platts showed.
The average run rate of the four state-owned oil majors, Sinopec, PetroChina, CNOOC and Sinochem, stood at around 78% to date in December, from an 80% average in November, according to the data.
The reduction comes despite a rise in gasoline and gasoil sales since mid-November, as refineries try to clear product inventories ahead of year-end book closures, refiners and analysts said.
PetroChina’s average utilization rate fell to 69% from 73% in November as its Yunnan Petrochemical refinery in southwestern China was shut for maintenance from Dec. 5 despite three other PetroChina plants lifting their run rates. Sinopec has kept its average run rate steady from November at around 82% of its capacity. Its Jinling Petrochemical refinery slashed its run rate by 21 percentage points from November, as the plant’s 8 million mt/year CDU as well as some of its secondary units have shut completely for the month.
Three of Sinopec’s other refineries, including Qingdao Petrochemical, Wuhan Petrochemical and Qilu Petrochemical, have restarted after the completion of maintenance, making up for the crude throughput loss at Jinling.
Qilu Petrochemical, which restarted its units in late November, has yet to ramp up its run rate in December back to its normal level of around 85%, due to emission control measures put in place in the region during winter.
China’s independent refineries have mostly lowered their run rates in December, with the exception of Hengli Petrochemical (Dalian) refinery.The 20 million mt/year Hengli refinery lifted its run rate to around 107% from 105% in November despite being short of crude import quota.
However, Zhejiang Petroleum & Chemical’s average utilization rate at its three 10 million mt/year CDUs was about 70% in December, with one of the CDUs still undergoing trial runs, according to a company source.
Meanwhile, 45 small private sector refineries in Shandong province lowered their combined average run rate slightly to around 73% as of Dec. 17, from around 76% in November, according to local information provider JLC.
Separately, PetroChina’s Liaoyang Petrochemical refinery in northeastern Liaoning province plans to export 40,000 mt of gasoil in December, a source with knowledge of the matter told Platts Dec. 14. This will be unchanged from November, when exports were cut from 80,000 mt/month over August-October. According to the source, demand for low vapor gasoil has been relatively strong in winter when temperatures are low, thus having less to export.
Sinopec’s Hainan Petrochemical refinery in South China plans to export about 140,000 mt of refined oil products in December, down from 160,000 mt planned for November. Sinopec plans to export 120,000 mt of gasoil in December from its refinery in northern Tianjin municipality. This will be about 50% higher from the planned export of 80,000 mt in November.
Meanwhile, Japan’s crude run rates rose further to 81% in the week ended Dec. 19, after touching 80% for the first time in 37 weeks the previous week, as the country’s crude throughput rose 1.1% week on week to 2.80 million b/d, the Petroleum Association of Japan said. Dec. 13-19 crude throughput, however, was down 11.5% year on year, according to Platts data. The week-on-week increases in refinery runs and crude throughput came as refiner ENEOS restarted the 95,200 b/d No. 2 crude distillation unit at its 200,200 b/d Mizushima-B plant on Dec. 15.
Source: Platts