China's oil throughput in June is at its lowest level since the pandemic, amid Iran war
China's crude throughput in June fell to its lowest level since pandemic levels, according to official data released on Wednesday. The?Iran War? tightened up supply, while high prices in China curbed demand.
The National Bureau of Statistics reported that the refinery throughput dropped 17.7% compared to a year ago, falling to 51,24 million metric tonnes, or approximately 12,47 million barrels a day.
The June throughput is the lowest it has been since March 2020, when the Covid pandemic was in full swing. It was also comparable to the levels of?in 2018
According to the data, the output in the first half was down 4.9% compared to a year ago, to 343,87 million tons or 13,87 million?bpd.
According to Chinese consultancy Oilchem, the utilisation rate for China's crude distillation units was 57.72%, down by 3.28 percentage points from one month to another and 13.09 percentage points compared with last year.
According to Vortexa analyst Emma Li, the low run rate was due to weak domestic demand as well as export restrictions on refined oil products.
According to official data, China's crude oil production in June fell by?0.5% on a year-on-year basis to 18,12 million tonnes.
Oil production in the first six months was 109.43 millions tons, an increase of?0.9% compared to a year ago.
In June, natural gas production increased 1.1% compared to the previous year. It reached 21.4 billion cubic meters (bcm). The total output for the year so far was 133.0 billion cubic meters (bcm), up 1.6%.
(source: Reuters)
