BEIJING: China’s crude oil throughput increased by 3.9% year-on-year in November, supported by a new round of crude import quotas for independent refiners that helped offset maintenance outages at some state-owned refineries, official data showed on Monday.
According to the National Bureau of Statistics, the world’s largest oil processor refined 60.83 million metric tons of crude in November, equivalent to about 14.86 million barrels per day (bpd). This was broadly steady compared with October’s 14.94 million bpd.
Around 1.2 million bpd of refining capacity was offline during the month due to maintenance at state-owned refineries, which weighed on overall throughput, said Muyu Xu, senior crude oil analyst at Kpler. However, newly issued import quotas enabled independent refiners—commonly known as teapots—to raise their operating rates to a yearly high of 64%, Xu added.
Looking ahead, Xu expects December throughput to remain largely stable, as maintenance at major state-owned plants continues while independent refiners further increase run rates.
Cumulative crude oil throughput for the January–November period reached 675.07 million tons, marking a 4% increase compared with the same period last year.
The data also showed that China’s crude oil production rose 2.2% year-on-year in November to 17.63 million tons. Output for the first 11 months of the year totaled 198.25 million tons, up 1.7%.
Meanwhile, natural gas production increased by 5.7% in November from a year earlier to 21.9 billion cubic meters (bcm). Gas output for January through November stood at 238.9 bcm, reflecting a 6.3% annual rise.
By Reuters
