China bought more crude oil for storage last month, with the average daily at some 1.88 million barrels, according to calculations made by Reuters energy columnist Clyde Russell.
Russell reported today that China’s domestic oil production last month stood at 4.31 million barrels, which was added to imports of some 12.43 million barrels daily. Refiners, for their part, processed an average of 14.86 million barrels daily. Based on these figures, a surplus of 1.88 million barrels daily remained to be placed in storage.
All the figures above, meanwhile, were an increase on October and/or a year earlier, suggesting healthy demand in the world’s largest importer of crude. The refinery throughput rates represented a 3.9% increase from November 2024, although it was also a slight dip from October 2025.
Domestic oil production was also higher in November from a month earlier, with the increase relatively modest, from 4.24 million barrels daily. Imports of crude, however, hit their highest in 27 months in November, representing also an 8.7% increase on October, Russell reported.
China has been building its oil inventories since March this year, with the daily rate over the first 11 months of the year averaging 980,000 barrels, per Russell. The build began after two months of storage withdrawals, in January and February, when the gap between imports plus domestic production and refinery run rates stood at 30,000 bpd, the Reuters columnist noted in his report.
China has been taking advantage of low oil prices to fill up its storage tanks, and it is also building new ones to expand storage capacity. This year and next will see a total of 11 new storage sites built across the country, with the combined capacity of the new sites coming in at some 169 million barrels.
The amount is equal to two weeks’ worth of crude oil imports, Reuters also said. It compares to new oil storage capacity additions of between 180 and 190 million barrels for the period between 2020 and 2024, according to data from Vortexa and Kpler cited by the publication.
By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com
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