MOSCOW (MRC) -- China’s refinery output jumped 12% in July from the same month a year earlier, hitting the highest on record for any single month, as several major state plants resumed operations after maintenance overhauls, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.
China processed 59.56 million tonnes of crude oil last month, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Friday, equivalent to about 14.03 million barrels per day (bpd). Throughput for the first seven months totalled 378.65 million tonnes, or about 12.98 million bpd, up 2.3% from the same period a year ago.
Two of Sinopec Corp’s top plants - Zhenhai and Tianjin - and PetroChina’s Dalian plant resumed production after being off-line for months. But the elevated production came amid slowing demand for diesel and gasoline as severe floods hit provinces along the middle and lower reaches of Yangtze River for much of July, leading to brimming inventories and signalling potential cutbacks in fuel processing down the line.
Run rates at independent refineries across China have already fallen to around 70% this week from near 80% last month, according to China-based Longzhong consultancy. “Stocks were very high, near the highest levels seen in February when the country was worst hit by the coronavirus, as floods stalled road traffic and slowed down construction,” said Wang Zhao, senior analyst with Sublime Information Group, ahead of the data release.
The NBS data also showed China’s domestic crude oil output rose 0.6% last month compared with the same month a year ago to 16.46 million tonnes, or 3.88 million bpd. Output for the January-July period reached 113.5 million tonnes, up 1.4% over the year-ago period.
Meanwhile, natural gas output grew 4.8% last month from a year earlier to 14.2 billion cubic metres (bcm), and production for the first seven months of the year climbed 9.5% to 108.3 bcm.
Ethylene and propylene are feedstocks for producing polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP).
According to MRC's DataScope report, PE imports to Russia dropped in January-June 2020 by 7% year on year to 328,000 tonnes. High density polyethylene (HDPE) accounted for the main decrease in imports. At the same time, PP imports into Russia rose in the first six months of 2020 by 21% year on year to 105,300 tonnes. Propylene homopolymer (homopolymer PP) accounted for the main increase in imports.
MRC