China's crude and gas production, refinery throughput in 2025 will reach new heights
Government data released on Monday showed that China's crude oil production and refinery throughput will both reach new highs in 2025, with crude oil growth of 1.5% and 4.1% respectively.
National Bureau of Statistics reported that the world's second-largest oil consumer will process 737.59 metric tons of crude oil in 2025.
Calculations showed that this is equivalent to?about?14.75million barrels per day (bpd) and surpasses the previous record set in 2023 of 14.7million bpd.
Jianan Sun is an analyst with Energy Aspects. She said that Chinese refining runs will grow by an average of 0.25 million barrels a day in 2025. This growth will be driven by the expansion of capacity among national oil companies, and the construction of the mega Yulong private refinery.
Energy?Aspects expects that runs at small refineries, known as teapots, will continue to be resilient. Meanwhile, the launch of Huajin Aramco Petrochemical Company is expected to continue to support Chinese runs, increasing by approximately 250,000 bpd this year.
Ye Lin, vice-president at Rystad, explained that the increase in throughput was also accompanied by a slowdown of LPG import growth, which had been dampened by possible tariffs.
Ye said that a 2025 tariff war between China and the United States would challenge China's use?of imported propane and ethane as steam crackers. This would prompt the domestic refinery sector to switch from road fuels?to crude-based feedstocks for petrochemicals, such as naphtha?and?LPG?, Ye said.
In December 2025 China produced and processed 17.8 million tonnes of crude oil or 4.19 millions bpd. Both figures are down from November.
Total crude oil production increased 1.5% in 2018 to 216.05 millions tons or 4.32million bpd. State oil firms have increased drilling offshore and unconventional resources, in the final year a seven-year energy security policy that was launched in 2019 in order to increase output.
Chen Lin, vice-president at Rystad, stated that the drivers of growth are CNOOC’s increasing offshore oil production as well as the recent introduction of new oil fields in the Bohai Sea or?South China Sea.
Bohai is CNOOC's biggest oilfield cluster, and also China's number one oil producer. It said that it would contribute more than 37 millions tons of crude oil, or 740,000 barrels per day, by 2025.
The company stated that the growth in oil production at the Bohai oilfield accounted for nearly 40% of the increase in national output over the past five years.
Rystad expects tight oil and shale production to increase by 14,3 million barrels in 2025 compared to the year before.
Data also revealed that natural gas production increased 6.2% to 261.9 billion cubic metres (bcm) in record time last year.
Official data released on Sunday showed that gas imports including liquefied gas (LNG), shipped in tankers and piped gas, were down 2.8% over the past year. This was mainly due to a drop of 10.6% in LNG imports.
(source: Reuters)
