Major Chinese refineries' operating rates averaged 81.84% on Mar 10, down 2.68 percentage points from two weeks before, 0.21 percentage points lower compared with one year ago, C1's research found.
Dalian Wepec, Jinling Petrochemical and Guangzhou Petrochemical put altogether 18.7-mil mt of annual topping capacity under maintenance and Fushun
Petrochemical shut down a 3.5-mil-mt/yr crude distillate unit. Maintenance of some secondary units at Qingdao refinery, Dalian Petrochemical and Yanshan Petrochemical also drove down the average run rate.
The above figures were obtained through computation on the basis of primary refining capacities of refineries. If calculated on the basis of their complex refining ratio, the average run rate would be about 87.68%, down 2.87 percentage points from last research.
The operating rate is expected to rebound in April, as some refineries step up production after maintenance.
The 23 major Chinese refineries involved in C1's research have a combined annual refining capacity of 281-mil mt.
