Chinese refiners processed 39% more crude oil last month, with the total at 60.83 million tons, or 14.86 million barrels daily, official data cited by Reuters showed.
The November daily average was a slight dip from October, when the average refinery throughput stood at 14.94 million barrels, but this was most likely a result of maintenance that took 1.2 million barrels daily in capacity offline in November, according to Kpler senior oil analyst Muyu Xu.
While some refineries did maintenance, however, independent refiners stepped up their runs following the issuance of new crude import quotas, Kpler’s Xu also said, as quoted by Reuters. Thanks to them, December throughput rates are likely to remain robust, the analyst added.
“Looking ahead, we expect December throughput to remain largely stable from November levels, as maintenance at state-owned refineries continues while teapots further lift run rates,” Xu said.
Over the period January to November, Chinese refiners processed 4% more crude oil than last year, with the total hitting 675.07 million tons, casting doubts on claims that the world’s largest importer of crude was experiencing an irreversible slowdown in oil demand growth.
Further fueling these doubts, China also booked an increase in domestic oil production, at 1.7% on the year to 198.25 million tons, Reuters reported. In November alone, China produced 17.63 million tons of crude oil, up by 2.2% on November 2024.
Average oil production this year has gone up to 4.3 million barrels daily, from 3.8 million barrels daily back in 2020. Even with this substantial increase, China remains reliant on imports for most of its needs: imports account for between 70 and 75% of its consumption.
It may well be this reliance on imports that has driven China’s rush to stockpile crude while prices are comfortably low. China has been stockpiling crude oil at a daily rate of around 1 million barrels this year. It has also been building new storage capacity. This year and next will see a total of 11 new storage sites built across the country, adding a combined capacity of some 169 million barrels.
By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com
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