China's imports of bitumen mixtures recorded a high of 1.08 million tonnes in June, a great leap forward compared with merely 100,000-200,000 t in April and May, after the customs clearance was smoothed in Shandong Province, according to General Administration of Customs (GACC).
Historical data showed that China's monthly bitumen mixtures imports were as high as 1.4 million tonnes on average in the first quarter of 2023 and were even higher at around 1.46 million t and 1.59 million t respectively in 2022 and 2021, indicating its importance as a supplementary feedstock for independent refineries, despite the taxation since June 2021.
Source: OilChem
The recent port arrivals tracked by OilChem further evidenced the animation of the bitumen mixtures import market. As of Monday July 24, the combined arrivals at ports in Shandong and Tianjin have already reached 1.13 million t in July.
The importing of "other heavy crude" is of concern as well because some bitumen mixtures and fuel oil were imported under this category when the customs lifted the threshold for the former. While the customs regulation may change in the future, the import volume of "other heavy crude", which rose drastically to 290,000 t in June from less than 10,000 t since 2022, may be inconsistent in the future.
Source: OilChem
To sum up, the import volume of both bitumen mixtures and "other heavy crude" is slated to remain high in July based on the current arrivals at ports.
Written by Aggie Hu, huchenying@mysteel.com
Edited by Navy Liu, liuchuanjun@mysteel.com