China Daily Oil Summary: Crude Imports and Stocks Rising

China’s crude imports ticked higher October at 10.7mn bpd, 200,000 bpd higher than September according to Vortexa.

• China’s onshore crude stocks started to accumulate in the second half of October – following two consecutive months of declines averaging 800kbd since late August.
• Stocks have built on falling China runs – especially teapots in Shandong. CDU utilisation rates at China’s independent refineries fell to 3.89 percentage points 64.25% in the week to Nov. 2, according to OilChem. At independent refineries in Shandong, CDU utilisation rates averaged 56.75%, down 4.17 percentage points on the week.
• Meanwhile, PetroChina is proposing to buy up to 8m bbl per month of Venezuelan crude from PDVSA, according to Reuters sources, hoping to resume trade flows with the South American country after being cut off by US sanctions for four years.
• YUAN: The currency strengthened to 7.3186 against the dollar from 7.3187 on Wednesday.
• China’s top financial meeting has signalled authorities will take stronger control of the levers of lending to channel credit to the real economy in line with national strategy while limiting risks, calling for much tighter regulation of banks and local government borrowing despite dropping a previous call for deleveraging, policy advisors and economists told MNI.
• China and the U.S. have agreed to work together to arrange a meeting between the countries’ presidents in San Francisco, said Wang Wenbin spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. When asked about the U.S. announcing the meeting as confirmed, Wang said the road to San Francisco cannot be carried out on "autopilot" and the two sides should earnestly return to the Bali consensus.