MOSCOW (MRC) -- China's diesel exports in July plunged 41% from a month ago as refiners neared the end of the first batch of 2021 refined fuel export quotas, while a drop-off in domestic fuel supplies encouraged refiners to prioritise local demand, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.
Diesel shipments were 1.39 million tonnes last month, hitting the lowest level since September 2020, data from the General Administration of Customs showed on Wednesday. That was down from 2.36 million tonnes in June but still well above 550,000 tonnes in July last year.
Gasoline exports in July also plunged 49% from a month earlier to only 740,000 tonnes, the lowest point in 14 months. Jet kerosene exports were 660,000 tonnes in July.
China granted 29.5 million tonnes of refined fuel products export quotas in the first batch for 2021. In the first six months, the country sold 26.29 million tonnes of diesel, gasoline and jet kerosene to overseas market.
Meanwhile, Beijing from mid-June imposed hefty taxes on imports of light cycle oil (LCO), mixed aromatics and diluted bitumen, aiming to curb imports it blames for worsening a fuel surplus and polluting the environment.
China's daily crude throughput last month fell to the lowest since May 2020. Last week, China slashed export quotas for refined fuels for the second batch of quotas issued for 2021 by 73% year-on-year to 7.5 million tonnes, pointing to low fuel exports in coming months.
The customs data on Wednesday also showed China's liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports in July were 5.67 million tonnes, up 14% from a year earlier, buoyed by increasing demand from industrial and power generation sectors.
As per MRC, China's daily crude throughput last month fell to the lowest since May 2020 as independent plants slashed production amid a tighter quotas, high inventories and weakening profits. Last month's processing volumes were 59.06 million tonnes, or 13.9 million barrels per day (bpd), 0.9% below the same month of 2020, data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed on Monday. That was the first year-on-year decline since March last year when coronavirus hammered Chinese fuel demand, and the July level was down 6% from off June's record at 14.8 million bpd.
Ethylene and propylene are the main feedstocks for the production of polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP), respectively.
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 1,176,860 tonnes in the first half of 2021, up by 5% year on year. Shipments of exclusively low density polyethylene (LDPE) decreased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market were 727,160 tonnes in the first six months of 2021, up by 31% year on year. Supply of homopolymer PP and block-copolymers of propylene (PP block copolymers) increased. Supply of statistical copolymers of propylene (PP random copolymers) subsided.
MRC