The actual arrivals of imported feedstock oil via ports in Shandong Province and Tianjin City (including Huanghua City), mainly those imported by independent refineries and traders, totaled 12.26 million tonnes in June, a significant increase of 13.06% compared with the revised data in May, according to OilChem.
The spike was primarily attributed to the recently released third batch of import quotas that beat expectations, as well as the smoothing customs clearance of fuel oil and cutback bitumen, which was specially stringent earlier.
Specifically, the arrivals of crude oil surged 15.67% month-on-month at 10.33 million t, benefiting from the third batch of import quotas as well as the popularity of heavy crude when the customs was strict on oil importing.
The volume of feedstock grade fuel oil came in at 1.28 million t in June, edging down 5.49% from the revised volume in May due to palpably falling imports from Southeast Asia. Nevertheless, the arrivals of Russian fuel oil surpassed 1 million t for the first time in recent years and recorded 1.01 million t.
Looking at July, the arrivals are expected to stay above 11 million t considering the on-going clearance of cutback bitumen as well as the resilient demand in Shandong amid local refineries' overhaul.
Written by Aggie Hu, huchenying@mysteel.com
Edited by Navy Liu, liuchuanjun@mysteel.com
