MOSCOW (MRC) -- China is expected to lead the Asia and Oceania’s refinery capacity growth, contributing around 71% of the region’s total capacity growth by 2024. China is likely to add 2.6 MMbpd of refinery capacity by 2024, according to Hydrocarbonprocessing with reference to GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.
The company’s report, ‘Refining Industry Outlook in Asia and Oceania to 2024 - Capacity and Capital Expenditure Outlook with Details of All Operating and Planned Refineries,’ reveals that refining capacity in Asia and Oceania is expected to increase by 3.6 MMbpd from 37.0 MMbpd in 2019 to 40.6 MMbpd in 2024 at an average annual growth rate (AAGR) of 1.9 percent. Out of Asia and Oceania’s total capacity additions, 2.0 MMbpd is expected to come from new-build planned projects, while the remaining 1.6 MMbpd is likely to come from the expansions of active/operational projects.
Adithya Rekha, Oil and Gas Analyst at GlobalData, comments: “Out of China’s total refinery capacity additions of 2.6 MMbpd by 2024, 1.2 MMbpd is likely to come from expansion of active projects and the rest 1.4 MMbpd is expected to be contributed by new-build projects by 2024. Among the refineries in China, Dayushan Island, Yulong, and Jieyang are the major refineries, accounting for most of the capacity additions in the country with a combined total of 1.2 MMbpd by 2024.”
GlobalData expects India to occupy the second place in terms of refinery capacity additions in Asia and Oceania by 2024. India is expected to contribute about 21% of Asia and Oceania’s refinery capacity growth, adding about 748 MMbpd by 2024. Among the refineries in India, Barmer and Nagapattinam II refineries account for most of the capacity additions with 180 MMbpd each by 2024.
Rekha concludes: “Thailand will be the third-highest country in Asia and Oceania to add about 125 thousand bpd by 2024 from the expansion of Sriracha I refinery.”
As MRC wrote before, China's crude oil throughput in November 2020 rose 3.2% on year, setting a record high on a daily basis, as a huge private refiner started trials of a new refining unit and state-owned refineries raised processing rates to meet annual targets. The country processed 58.35 million tonnes of crude in November, equivalent to 14.2 MMbpd, according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on 15 December, 2020. That exceeded the October record of 14.09 MMbpd. January-November throughput was 614.41 MMt, or 13.39 MMbpd, up 3.1% from the same period in 2019. Zhejiang Petrochemical Corp in early November started a 200,000 bpd crude unit, in addition to its existing 400,000 bpd refining capacity in eastern China.
We remind that in January 2020, Zhejiang Petroleum & Chemical Co Ltd, one of two new major refineries built in China in 2019, started up the remaining units in the first phase of its refinery and petrochemical complex. The complex is situated in east China’s Zhoushan city. The company, 51% owned by private chemical group Zhejiang Rongsheng Holdings, said it ha started test production at ethylene, aromatics and other downstream facilities, without giving further details.
Zhejiang Petrochemical started a first 200,000 barrels per day (bpd) crude processing unit in late May, 2019, following on from the start of a 400,000-bpd refinery owned by another private chemical major Hengli Petrochemical. The newly started units at Zhejiang Petrochemical should include a second 200,000-bpd crude unit, a 1.2 million tonnes per year (tpy) ethylene unit and a 2 million tpy paraxylene unit, according to several industry sources with knowledge of the plant’s operations.
Ethylene and propylene are feedstocks for producing polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP).
According to MRC's DataScope report, PE imports to Russia decreased in January-November 2020 by 17% year on year and reached 569,900 tonnes. High density polyethylene (HDPE) accounted for the greatest reduction in imports. At the same time, PP imports into Russia increased by 21% year on year to about 202,000 tonnes in the first eleven months of 2020. Propylene homopolymer (homopolymer PP) accounted for the main increase in imports.
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