MOSCOW (MRC) -- China's state-owned Sinopec will increase its gasoil supply by 19% in November from October to meet domestic demand, reported S&P Global with reference to the company's press release Oct. 28.
Sinopec will run its refineries at full capacity while adjusting yield to lift gasoil supply in November by 29%, it said without giving the actual number.
In October, the company has already raised its gasoil supply by about 20% from the monthly average level in the first three quarters of the year, Sinopec added.
The supply increase in October was more likely from gasoil yield adjustment and sourcing the barrels externally, as the refiner actually led the utilization cuts among state-run refiners in the month.
Its run rate was down two percentage points from September at 82%, processing 4.3 million b/d in October. This was mainly due to scheduled maintenance works at several refineries while the operating ones maintained throughputs with limited feedstocks, S&P Global Platts has reported.
In November, three of its refineries are due for scheduled maintenance. They are the 260,000 b/d Gaoqiao Petrochemical, the 264,000 b/d Guangzhou Petrochemical and the 280,000 b/d Fujian Refining & Chemical refineries. But its flagship 540,000 b/d Zhenhai refinery, which just started up a new 80,000 b/d crude distillation unit in late September, and some of its Sinopec peers are set to further lift throughput to ensure domestic gasoil supply, a company source said.
Sinopec is the world's biggest refiner by capacity. Its gasoil production averaged 4.76 million mt in the first half of 2021, accounting for about 37.4% of China's gasoil output.
As MRC informed before, in August, 2021, Sinopec, the world's petrochemical major, launched the first phase of the Gulei refining complex in Zhangzhou city in China’s southeastern Fujian province. The refining complex, a 50:50 joint venture between Sinopec’s Fujian Petrochemical Company Ltd and Taiwan Xuteng Investment Company Ltd, invested 27.8 billion yuan (USD4.28 billion) in the first phase. That will result in an 800,000 tonnes per annum ethylene plant, a 600,000 tonnes per annum styrene unit and seven other downstream petrochemical units, Sinopec said.
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 1,396,960 tonnes in January-July 2021, up by 7% year on year. Shipments of all grades of ethylene polymers increased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market were 841,990 tonnes in the first seven months of 2021, up by 29% year on year. Supply of propylene homopolymers (homopolymer PP) and block-copolymers of propylene (PP block copolymers) increased, whereas supply of statistical copolymers of propylene (PP random copolymers) subsided.
China Petrochemical Corporation (Sinopec Group) is a super-large petroleum and petrochemical enterprise group established in July 1998 on the basis of the former China Petrochemical Corporation. Sinopec Group's key business activities include the exploration and production of oil and natural gas, petrochemicals and other chemical products, oil refining.
MRC