China fuel oil import dependency fell below 30% in 2022, hitting a historic new low, due to a surge in domestic low-sulfur fuel oil supply, according to OilChem.
Low-sulfur fuel oil capacity totaled 29 million tonnes/year in China, surging by more than 40%, leading to an estimated production of 15.80 million tonnes by the end of 2022, soaring by 38% from a year earlier, data from OilChem showed.
There have been almost no low-sulfur fuel oil imports since the second quarter, as most of bonded low-sulfur fuel oil resources were produced by domestic refineries or blended at free trade area this year, in addition, the consumption of bonded low-sulfur fuel oil accounted for 88% in bonded bunker oil market, making bonded bunker oil market witness an impressive increase in self-sufficiency rate, according to OilChem.
Affected by that, China fuel oil import dependency plunged, according to OilChem, as most of fuel oil import demand came from bonded bunker fuel.
As a result, the import volume of bonded bunker fuel plunged by 30.46% to 5.36 million tonnes, causing fuel oil imports to slump by 18.29% to 9.01 million tonnes from January to October, according to General Customs Administration of People's Republic of China (GAC).
Written by Catherine Sun, sss@oilchem.net
Edited by Navy Liu, navy@oilchem.net
