(Corrects to show China’s seaborne crude oil imports fell in September on the month to their lowest since January, not May, after a senior Kpler analyst revised statement, in paragraph 7)
By Sam Li and Lewis Jackson
BEIJING (Reuters) -China’s crude oil imports rose 3.9% in September from a year earlier as refineries operated at their highest utilisation rates this year.
The world’s largest crude importer, China brought in 47.25 million metric tons of oil in September, data from the General Administration of Customs showed on Monday, or the equivalent of 11.5 million barrels per day.
China’s refinery utilisation rates in September climbed to the year’s highest, with relatively high levels of daily gasoline and diesel output, though supply continued to outpace demand, Chinese consulting firm Oilchem said.
Atmospheric and vacuum distillation units at Chinese refineries used 73.45% of capacity, up 1.28 percentage points from August and 3.22 percentage points from a year earlier, Oilchem said.
State-owned refineries’ utilisation rose 3.55 percentage points on the year to 81.05% of capacity, while independent refiners increased their utilisation by 3.02 percentage points to 62.17%, Oilchem added.
A total of 14 refineries underwent maintenance in September, two fewer than in August, involving a combined capacity of 70.4 million tons per year, down 12.3 million from the previous month, the consulting firm said.
However, China’s seaborne crude oil imports fell in September on the month to their lowest since January, with shipments from Iran hitting the lowest since January, according to Kpler’s data.
“The month-on-month decline mainly reflected tight import quotas for independent refineries, which curbed purchases of Russian and Iranian barrels, while narrower arbitrage in June also reduced inflows from Brazil and West Africa, which were loaded in July and August,” said Muyu Xu, senior crude oil analyst at Kpler.
For the first nine months of the year, total crude imports were up 2.6% at 423 million tons, reflecting China’s continued stockpiling activity.
Imports of natural gas, including both pipeline gas and liquefied natural gas (LNG), fell 7.8% in September to 11.05 million tons from a year earlier.
China imported 92.86 million tons of LNG in the first nine months, down 6.2% on the year.
(1 metric ton of crude oil=7.3 barrels)
(Reporting by Sam Li and Lewis Jackson; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
