State-owned refiners in China were set to maintain a steady level of maintenance capacity in 2023, with a combined total of 222.8 million tonne/year, compared to 232.2 million t/y in 2022, according to OilChem data.
Data from OilChem showed that since 2018, state-owned refiners, which account for 60% of domestic capacity, had maintained a CDU capacity utilization rate of 70-80% on average, reaching its highest point of 86.03% in July 2020 due to the resumption of work and production following the initial spread of the epidemic, and its lowest point of 68.21% in April 2020 when confirmed cases across the country were increasing.
With production improving after the Spring Festival holiday this year, the weekly capacity utilization rate of state-owned refiners hit 77.3% by February 23, remaining flat from a week earlier and 2.2 percentage points higher than before the holiday.
OilChem expected the capacity utilization rate to continue to rise before mid-March, and domestic product supply would increase accordingly. In particular, planned refined oil exports in March may collapse 64% from February, while the lowest point may occur between April and July due to centralized maintenance.
2018-2023 CDU Capacity Utilization of China State-owned Refiners
Source: OilChem
2022-2023 Maintenance Capacity of State-owned Refiners (million t/y)
Source: OilChem
Written by Sunny Fang, fss@oilchem.net
Edited by Navy Liu, navy@oilchem.net