China Daily Oil Summary: Shandong Seeking Fuel Oil

The government of China’s Shandong province, a hub for China’s independent refineries, has requested a further 3m mt of fuel oil imports from the central government in Beijing, hoping to offset the lack of remaining crude quotas and maintain refinery throughput, according to Zawya news.

• CDU Capacity Utilisation rates at China’s independent refineries averaged 62.97% in the seven days to Nov. 9, down 1.28 percentage points on the week, according to OilChem.
• Kpler expects China crude imports to slip in Q4 from October levels of ~11mn bpd driven by weaker refinery runs.
• Kpler also expects to see limited upside for Chinese oil demand growth in 2024 with demand upside more likely to come from India and Southeast Asia.
• Saudi Aramco has notified at least four North Asian buyers that it will supply full contractual crude volumes to them in December according to Reuters sources. Chinese buyers have slightly reduced nominated volumes from Saudi for December to around 46mn bbls – down from 47 million barrels for November and 50 million for October according to the sources.

• POLICY: China's Consumer Price Index fell by 0.2% in October to mark a three-month low, while the Producer Price Index -- a measure of factory-gate inflation -- dropped further, data from the National Bureau of Statistics.
• YUAN: The currency weakened to 7.2850 against the dollar from 7.2756 on Wednesday.