Chinese April refinery runs steady vs March, up 7.5% year-on-year

London, (Quantum Commodity Intelligence) - China's throughput of crude oil was flat in April compared with a month earlier, although runs remain 7.5% up on the same month in 2020, monthly data published by the National Bureau of Statistics showed Monday.

Chinese refineries processed 57.9 million mt of crude oil over the course of the month, equivalent to 14.09 million bpd using a 7.3 conversion rate and identical to the 14.1 million bpd throughput in March.

April's figure is 7.5% up on the 13.1 million bpd, or 55.6 million mt, processed in the same month a year earlier when the country was recovering from its initial wave of covid infections across several provinces.

The figures show that Chinese demand for crude oil has so far flatlined this year with the total volume processed at 232.1 million mt, equivalent to 14.1 million bpd.

The four-month figure, however, is up 14.2% on the first four months of 2020.

That compares with economic growth in the first quarter of the year of 18.3%, possibly indicating, and notwithstanding a reduction in stocks of refined products, that the country's economic growth is decoupling from its crude consumption.

In terms of production, Chinese crude output totalled 16.41 million mt (3.99 million bpd) versus 17.09 million mt (4.02 million bpd) in March.

China has produced 65.63 million mt of crude oil so far this year, equivalent to 3.99 million bpd and up 1.9% on the year so far.