China Weekly Oil Summary: China Remains Top Russian Crude Buyer

Russian seaborne exports to China stood at 1.17mbpd in the four weeks to 19 November according to Bloomberg, making China again the top crude buyer of Russian oil this month.

• Russia also remained the top crude supplier for China in October according to official customs data. China's crude imports from Russia - including supplies via pipelines and seaborne shipments - totalled 8.54 million metric tons in October, or 2.01mbpd, 5.6% below September's level of 2.13mbpd.
• Chinese independent refiners are holding off on making new purchases of Venezuelan oil due to discrepancies in offered prices following the US’ relaxation on the country’s sanctions, trading sources told Reuters.
• China began adding to crude inventories in October due to weaker refining and slightly higher imports m/m according to Reuters calculations. It calculated that Chinese inventories rose by around 560kbpd in October.
• Shandong independent refinery crude oil storage rate was flat on week according to OilChem.
• Shandong independent refineries' crude oil storage capacity utilization rate averaged 47.16% as of November 22, down 0.09 percentage points w/w.
• China teapots in Shandong raised run rates to 57.56% of capacity in the week to November 23 – the first weekly increase in 8 weeks according to OilChem.
• China’s refined oil exports are planned at 2.73m tonnes in November, a drop of 19.94% MoM according to an OilChem survey. Exports are expected to decline further to 2.5-2.7m tonnes in December based on the remaining export quotas.
• Refined oil production in China is estimated to decline 4.3m tonnes or 10.8% m-o-m in November while CDU capacity utilization rates fall 4% to 71.6% according to OilChem Throughput is expected to fall nearly 6m tonnes.
• Chinese gasoline exports are expected to decline by 10% on the year on 2023 to 11.77mn tons due to poor margins, JLC analyst, Wang Yanting, said.
• China’s gasoline demand is expected to peak at 170mn tons at around 2025, Qiu Xuan, a researcher with PetroChina Planning & Engineering Institute, said, cited by Bloomberg.