China’s crude throughputs hit record high in 2020

China's crude throughputs held near record highs at 14.18mn b/d in December, down marginally from 14.25mn b/d in November, national statistics bureau (NBS) data show.

Throughputs in 2020 as a whole totalled 674.41mn t or 13.51mn b/d, up by 3.2pc from 2019 to reach a new all-time high.

Independent refineries received more crude import quotas last year to help feed several new crude distillation units, boosting throughputs despite the impact of the Covid-19 epidemic early in the year.

The commerce ministry (MoC) issued three batches of non-state crude import quotas to independent refineries for a combined 3.68mn b/d, up by 10pc from 3.33mn b/d a year earlier.

Private-sector refiners Hengli and ZPC ran hard last year, exceeding their 400,000 b/d nameplate capacities to make full use of lower-priced crude feedstock. ZPC's crude throughputs averaged 460,000 b/d in 2020 and are on course to increase further after the company opened a 400,000 b/d expansion in November, doubling its capacity. Hengli ran at 7pc above its total capacity last year, according to Argus calculations.

State-controlled Sinopec started operating its new 200,000 b/d Zhanjiang refinery in June, while fellow state-run firm PetroChina revamped its Daqing refinery in August, expanding capacity by 70,000 b/d to 190,000 b/d.

Sinopec's crude runs averaged 4.76mn b/d in 2020 , down by 4.9pc from a year earlier because of run cuts during the peak of the Covid-19 outbreak. This was equivalent to 78pc of the company's total 6.1mn b/d refining capacity last year.

China's domestic crude output was 3.84mn b/d in December, up by a slight 0.9pc from a year earlier. This took total output in January-December to 195mn t or 3.9mn b/d, higher by 1.6pc from 2019. Production wasin line with guidance from the national energy administration (NEA), which calling for domestic producers to target crude output of 193mn t or 3.86mn b/d in 2020.

China crude throughputs unit 2020 2019 Change %&#177; Jan-Feb average 12.12 12.60 -3.8 March 11.83 12.67 -6.6 April 13.16 13.05 0.8 May 13.69 12.65 8.2 June 14.14 12.97 9.0 July 14.08 12.53 12.4 August 14.07 12.88 9.2 September 14.01 13.84 1.3 October 14.14 13.79 2.6 November 14.25 13.70 3.2 December 14.18 13.83 2.5 Jan-Dec average 13.51 13.09 3.2 Source: NBS

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