India exports revival picks up speed in March

MOSCOW (MRC) -- A recovery in Indian exports gathered steam in March with a pick-up in demand for engineering and petroleum products, bolstering an economy still recovering from the government's cash clampdown, said Reuters.

However, a surge in gold and crude oil imports widened the monthly trade deficit to a four-month high of USD10.44 B, data released by the government showed on Thursday. Merchandise exports grew 28% to USD29.23 B in March year-on-year, while imports rose 45.25% to USD39.67 B over the same period.

The export numbers bode well for India's USD2-trillion economy that is still smarting from Prime Minister Narendra Modi's decision in November to ban high-value currency notes.

They will also cheer Modi who aims to lift India's share in global trade to 5% by 2020. Indian goods exports currently account for just 1.6% of global trade, compared with nearly 14% for China.

Higher volumes and prices doubled petroleum imports to USD9.7 B in March from a year ago. Gold imports surged by more than four times to USD4.2 B last month on restocking as well as demand from the marriage and festive season.

The trade deficit for the year ending in March declined to USD105.72 B from USD118.7 B in the previous year, the data showed.

Thursday's figures come a day after the World Trade Organization (WTO) forecast an annual 2.4% growth in global trade this year despite "deep uncertainty" about economic and policy developments globally, particularly in the United States.

Global trade grew by "an usually low" 1.3% in 2016, the slowest pace since the financial crisis, failing to match even its revised forecast of 1.7% of last September.
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- Taiwan's Formosa has bought up to 120,000 tons of open-specification naphtha, for flat to premiums of about USD2/ton to Japan quotes on a cost-and-freight (C&F) basis for the cargoes arriving in Mailiao in H2-May, as per Reuters.

This brings the Taiwanese majors' total purchases for May to around 300,000 tons, as per traders in Reuters. Price evels are higher versus discounts of USD1 to USD2.75 Formosa had paid on March 30.

Asia's top naphtha importer has also bought alternative liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) for H2-May delivery at a discount of USD60/ton to Japan naphtha quotes.

As MRC wrote previously, Formosa Plastics USA, part of Formosa Petrochemical, shut its 798,000 mt/year polyvinyl chloride (PVC) line at its Point Comfort, Texas, plant following a line leak, as per a company filing. The unit was taken offline last Wednesday following a leak in a 3-inch-diameter degas line. The event ended Thursday, and included the release of an estimated 166.7 lb of vinyl chloride monomer. It was unclear Thursday if the unit had returned to normal operations. Formosa declined to comment.

Formosa Petrochemical is involved primarily in the business of refining crude oil, selling refined petroleum products and producing and selling olefins (including ethylene, propylene, butadiene and BTX) from its naphtha cracking operations. Formosa Petrochemical is also the largest olefins producer in Taiwan and its olefins products are mostly sold to companies within the Formosa Group. Among the company's chemical products are paraxylene (PX), phenyl ethylene, acetone and pure terephthalic acid (PTA). The company's plastic products include acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) resins, polystyrene (PS), polypropylene (PP) and panlite (PC).
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- Formosa Plastics USA, part of Formosa Petrochemical, shut its 798,000 mt/year polyvinyl chloride (PVC) line at its Point Comfort, Texas, plant following a line leak, as per a company filing, reported Plastemart.

The unit was taken offline on Wednesday following a leak in a 3-inch-diameter degas line. The event ended Thursday, and included the release of an estimated 166.7 lb of vinyl chloride monomer.

It was unclear Thursday if the unit had returned to normal operations. Formosa declined to comment.

As MRC informed before, in November 2016, Taiwan's Formosa Petrochemical Corp. unveiled plans for maintenances at its 540 Mbpd Mailiao refinery, which will happen in March, September and November 2017. The refiner is planning to shut a 180 Mbpd crude distillation unit (CDU) and two residue desulfurizer units (RDS) with a capacity of 80 Mbpd each at some stage during the maintenance periods.

Formosa Petrochemical is involved primarily in the business of refining crude oil, selling refined petroleum products and producing and selling olefins (including ethylene, propylene, butadiene and BTX) from its naphtha cracking operations. Formosa Petrochemical is also the largest olefins producer in Taiwan and its olefins products are mostly sold to companies within the Formosa Group. Among the company's chemical products are paraxylene (PX), phenyl ethylene, acetone and pure terephthalic acid (PTA). The company's plastic products include acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) resins, polystyrene (PS), polypropylene (PP) and panlite (PC).
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- China is the world’s largest net importer of crude oil, and in recent years, China’s crude oil imports have increasingly come from countries outside the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

While OPEC countries still made up most (57%) of China’s 7.6 MMbpd of crude oil imports in 2016, crude oil from non-OPEC countries made up 65% of the growth in China’s imports between 2012 and 2016. Leading non-OPEC suppliers included Russia (14% of total imports), Oman (9%), and Brazil (5%).

On an average annual basis, China’s crude oil imports increased by 2.2 MMbpd between 2012 and 2016, and the non-OPEC countries’ share increased from 34% to 43% over the period. Market shares for China’s top three non-OPEC suppliers (Russia, Oman, and Brazil), all increased over these years. While still comparatively small as a share of China’s crude oil imports, imports from Brazil reached a record high of 0.6 MMbpd in December 2016, and imports from the United Kingdom reached a high of 0.2 MMbpd in February 2017.

Growth in China’s total crude oil imports in 2016 reflected both lower domestic crude oil production and continued demand growth. After increasing steadily between 2012 and 2015, China’s crude oil production declined significantly in 2016. Total liquids supply in China averaged 4.9 MMbpd in 2016, a year-over-year decline of 0.3 MMbpd, the largest drop for any non-OPEC country in 2016. US crude oil production fell by more than 0.5 MMbpd in 2016, but total liquids declined by less than 0.3 MMbpd because other liquids production increased by less than 0.3 MMbpd.

Much of Chinese production growth from 2012 through 2015 was driven by more expensive drilling and production techniques, such as enhanced oil recovery (EOR) in older fields. As oil prices declined during 2016, investments in developing new reserves also fell and were not high enough to offset the natural production declines of older fields.

China’s demand growth has remained the world’s largest in every year since 2009, increasing 0.4 MMbpd in 2016. As China increased its imports to address a growing gap between its domestic production and demand, it surpassed the United States as the world’s largest net importer of total petroleum (crude oil and petroleum products) in 2014. The United States imports more crude oil and exports more crude oil and petroleum products than China.

Other factors contributed to an increase in Chinese crude oil imports. For example, in July 2015, the Chinese government began allowing independent refiners (those not owned by the government) to import crude oil. The independent refiners previously had restrictions on the amount of crude oil they could import and relied on domestic supply and fuel oil as primary feedstocks. Another factor is the Chinese government’s filling of new Strategic Petroleum Reserve sites.

EIA’s latest Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO) forecasts a 0.3 MMbpd increase in China’s total liquid fuels demand in both 2017 and 2018. Absent any domestic production increases, China’s crude oil imports are expected to continue increasing. More information about China’s crude oil imports and various market forces that may suggest continued growth in non-OPEC crude oil imports are available in EIA’s This Week in Petroleum.
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MOSCOW (MRC) -- Japan's naphtha imports for the petrochemical sector rose 14% in March from the same month a year earlier, said Hydrocarbonprocessing, citing government figures.

Imports of naphtha for ethylene production totaled 1.25 MMt last month, up from 1.10 MMt in the same month a year earlier, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said. Following is a table of naphtha import volume.

As MRC informed earlier, Japan's Mitsui Chemicals has initiated the production of electrolyte solution at its facilities at Nagoya Works, to meet the growing demand for the lithium-ion battery-use electrolyte solution.
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