CHINA DATA: China's state refiners trim Sep run rates to 82%, from 84% in Aug

The average utilization rate of China's four state-owned refiners fell from 84% in August to 82% in September, while independent refiners also cut run rates by two percentage points, according to S&P Global Platts.

As a result, the country's crude throughput is likely to fall further from the 15-month low of 58.35 million mt in August, data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed Sept. 15.

Moreover, the low throughput has led to tight supplies in domestic oil product market, especially pushing up gasoil wholesale price by around 20% or Yuan 1,300/mt from early September, market sources said.

The state oil majors -- Sinopec, PetroChina, CNOOC and Sinochem -- plan to process a total of 31.5 million mt of crudes in September, or 7.7 million b/d, against their nameplate capacity of 9.44 million b/d, Platts' data showed.

In August, those four oil majors had planned to process 32.79 million mt of crude.

Sinopec's average run rate fell to 84% in September from 88% in August due to the company's throughput control in addition to the scheduled maintenance at Sinopec's Shijiazhuang Petrochemical and Qilu Petrochemical.

In September, Sinopec has required its refineries to cut throughputs, following the "duo cuts" on energy consumption and carbon emission in some provinces, such eastern China Jiangsu province.

Sinopec's Jinling Petrochemical in the province lowered its run rates by about three percentage points from August.

Meanwhile, Sinochem's Quanzhou refinery also trimmed its crude throughput slightly in September, due to the replacement of the catalysts at its residual cracking unit. The refinery will also shut for an overall turnaround in November.

PetroChina

Due to the export quota shortage, PetroChina cut throughput by one percentage point to 75% from August due to limited oil product outlets.

Dalian Wepec experienced a severe cut of eight percentage points compared with the previous month, to process just 635,000 mt of crudes in September, compared with 720,000 mt last month.

On the other hand, PetroChina continued to cut the gasoil yields, which contributed to the shortage of gasoil in domestic market.

Platts data covered 42 state-owned refineries in September, compared with 41 in August. These included 23 Sinopec refineries, 17 PetroChina refineries, CNOOC's Huizhou Petrochemical and Sinochem's Quanzhou Petrochemical refinery. The 23 Sinopec refineries covered by Platts have a combined capacity of 5.2 million b/d, accounting for 86.9% of the refining giant's total capacity of 5.98 million b/d. Meanwhile, data collected by Platts for PetroChina's refineries represent a combined capacity of 3.49 million b/d, accounting for 85.3% of the company's total capacity of 4.09 million b/d.

Independent refiners

In the independent sector, refineries have also cut their run rates by at least two percentage points.

The 20 million mt/year Hengli Petrochemical (Dalian) in northeastern China lowered its run rates further to around 91% in September, from 100% in August, and 105% in July. This is the lowest level since Platts has tracked its run rates since May 2020. The refinery has shut a 2.25 million mt/year aromatics unit for maintenance following the maintenance at its residual hydrocracking unit, which has capped its daily crude throughputs.

On the other hand, the run rate at Zhejiang Petroleum & Chemical's two 10 million mt/year crude distillation units has been around 90% in late September, compared with 100% in August. The refiner has restarted its third CDU in Phase 2 project in early September but shut down again last week due to the cuts in energy consumption in the local region. The company has been expecting a fourth batch of crude quotas to be allocated, which will bring in more crudes for its cracking, according to a company source.

The small-sized independent refineries in eastern Shandong province also cut run rate to 64.8% as of Sept. 22, from the monthly average of 66.8% in August and 68% in July, according to local information provider JLC.

STATE-OWNED REFINERIES' MAINTENANCE SCHEDULES

* Sinopec's Qilu Petrochemical has restarted a 4 million mt/year CDU from maintenance at around Sept. 21, which started from Aug. 2.

* Sinopec's Shijiazhuang Petrochemical has been under maintenance since end-August, and will last till end-October.

* Sinopec's Guangzhou Petrochemical will shut an 8 million mt/year CDU for maintenance over mid-October to end-November.

* Sinopec's Gaoqiao Petrochemical will shut the entire refinery for maintenance over Oct. 10-early December.

* Sinopec's Fujian Refining and Petrochemical will shut a 4 million mt/year CDU for maintenance over mid-October to mid-November.

* Sinochem's Quanzhou Petrochemical will shut for maintenance from early November to last till late December.

Average run rates at China's top refiners:

Source: S&P Global Platts, JLC