China Daily Oil Summary: Private Refiner Import Quota Unchanged

At 243mn tons for 2024, China keeps the crude import quota for private refiners unchanged for a fourth consecutive year.

• China intends to cap its crude oil processing capacity at 1 billion metric tons by 2025 according to the country’s state planning agency.
• China’s imports of Iranian crude/condensate into Shandong are on track for a new high in October as refiners anticipate strong teapot demand according to Vortexa figures. It comes as availability of other sanctioned grades from Russia and Venezuela tighten.
• Shandong has pulled in ~1.4mn bpd of Iranian volumes October 1-22 – which appears to be heading into commercial storage in South and East China awaiting teapot draws.
• Asian jet fuel demand is expected to remain sluggish for the remainder of 2023, amid falling travel demand and higher export volumes from China, according to Platts. Despite an expectation that China’s product export volumes will fall in the final months of the year – to 1.4m mt in November, down 26.3% from October's - this is unlikely to tighten the Asian jet fuel market, instead just removing excess length, Platts’ sources said.
• YUAN: The currency weakened to 7.3150 to the dollar from 7.3075 on Tuesday.
• POLICY: China’s government debt ratio remains "reasonable and under control" despite the budget deficit increasing to 3.8% from 3% following the increase in the national fiscal deficit, according to Vice Minister of Finance Zhu Zhongming.
• EXCLUSIVE: China’s interbank liquidity reached its tightest level since January as economic recovery gathered strength following mid-year lows, but the proportion of traders expecting further easing jumped ahead of key year-end policy meetings, MNI's latest China Liquidity Survey shows.