China processed 36.78-mil mt of crude in August, down by 1.87% month on month, according to the data from the National Bureau of Statistics.
Accordingly, the country's daily crude throughput fell to 1.19-mil mt in August, also down by 1.87%.
A few major refineries were still under maintenance in August, including Dalian Wepec and Changqing Petrochemical, and Dushanzi Petrochemical started maintenance of 16-mil mt of annual refining capacity in early August, C1 found.
In addition, Shandong independent refineries lowered operation rates in the month, in part because of maintenance. After continuous drops, their average run rate fell to about 30% in late August, down from around 40% at the end of July, C1 found.
The country’s crude throughput in the first eight months of the year climbed by 6.60% year on year, NBS data also showed. The surge was mainly attributable to new refining capacity that came on stream in the second half of 2010.
China’s crude throughput is likely to slip further in September as Dushanzi Petrochemical is still under maintenance and some other refineries are scheduled to have maintenance this month. Luoyang Petrochemical and Jiujiang Petrochemical, for instance, plan to begin maintenance of 15-mil mt of annual refining capacity in combination this month.
