MOSCOW (MRC) -- Saudi Arabia's crude oil exports fell to their lowest in eight months in February, the Joint Organizations Data Initiative (JODI) said on Monday, as the world's biggest oil exporter voluntarily capped output to support oil prices, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.
Crude exports fell to 5.625 million barrels per day (bpd), their lowest since June 2020 in February, from 6.582 million bpd in the prior month. Exports had risen for a seventh straight month, to their highest since April 2020, in January.
Crude output for February also dropped to its lowest since June last year at 8.147 million bpd, from 9.103 million bpd in January. Saudi Arabia, the de facto leader of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and allies, voluntarily cut output by 1 million bpd in February, March and April as part of a deal with OPEC+ producers after new virus variants cast doubts over fuel demand.
Total crude and oil products exports fell to 6.86 million bpd in February from 7.75 million bpd a month earlier. The country's domestic refinery crude throughput fell to 2.281 million bpd, while crude stocks fell to 134.575 million barrels in February.
Exports of oil products rose to 1.23 million bpd in February and demand for oil products edged higher to 1.885 million bpd in the same period. Monthly export figures are provided by Riyadh and other OPEC members to JODI, which publishes them on its website.
As per MRC, China’s daily refinery throughput surged 19.7% in March from a year earlier, as refiners ramped up operations to meet robust fuel demand and to build up inventory before shutting down for overhaul. China processed 59.79 million tons of crude oil last month, data issued by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed on Friday. That is equivalent to 14.08 million barrels per day (bpd), easing off 14.13 million bpd averaged in the first two months. The strong year-on-year growth was in part due to a low base a year earlier when Chinese fuel demand was badly hit by coronavirus that forced refineries to slash production.
Ethylene and propylene are feedstocks for producing polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP).
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated polyethylene (PE) consumption totalled 356,370 tonnes in the first two month of 2021, down by 9% year on year. Shipments of exclusively low density polyethylene (LDPE) increased. At the same time, polypropylene (PP) shipments to the Russian market was 246,870 tonnes in January-February 2021, up by 30% year on year. Supply of homopolymer PP and PP block copolymers increased.
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