October crude oil imports decreased to lowest in three years in China

MOSCOW (MRC) -- China's crude oil imports plunged in October to the lowest since September 2018, as large state-owned refiners withheld purchases because of rising prices while independent refiners were restrained by limited quotas to import, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

The world's biggest crude oil importer brought in 37.8 MM tons last month, data from the General Administration of Customs showed on Sunday, equivalent to 8.9 MM barrels per day (bpd). That is down from 9.99 MMbpd in September and 10.02 MMbpd in the same period last yr. Over the January-October period, crude arrivals totaled 425.06 MM tons, or 10.21 MMbpd, down 7.2% year-on-year, the customs data showed.

Crude imports were down on a monthly basis for a second mos and the decline has occurred amid a 62% jump in crude oil prices this yr as economies open globally from COVID-19 pandemic restrictions, spurring fuel demand. Beijing's crackdown on illicit trading in crude oil quotas and import allowances for independent oil refiners also weighed on purchases.

Customs data on Sunday also showed China's refined oil product exports for October fell 31.8% on-year to 3.95 MM tons. Natural gas imports, including piped and liquefied natural gas (LNG), were 9.38 MM tons in October, up 24.6% from a yr earlier.

Oil imports may be set to rise in November as refiners have vowed to address a shortfall in diesel and gasoline supplies that has pushed fuel prices higher.

Additionally, Beijing has issued 14.89 MM tons of crude oil import quotas for independent refiners for the remaining period of 2021, and China's Zhejiang Petrochemical Corp (ZPC), operator of China's single largest refinery, has separately received a quota of 12 MM tons.

As per MRC, China will take action to reduce waste, promote renewables and unconventional fuel, and reform its electricity network as part of its plan to bring carbon emissions to a peak before 2030. The new action plan repeats China's targets to bring wind and solar capacity to 1,200 gigawatts by the end of the decade, to build more hydropower and nuclear plants and further develop natural gas resources. The document was published just five days before talks get under way in Glasgow to strengthen the global fight against climate change. China is set to announce its updated "nationally determined contributions" before the meeting begins.

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 1,868,160 tonnes in the first nine months of 2021, up by 18% year on year. Shipments of all grades of ethylene polymers increased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market were 1,138,510 tonnes in the first nine months of 2021, up by 30% year on year. Supply of propylene homopolymer (homopolymer PP) and block-copolymers of propylene (PP block copolymers) increased, whereas supply of injection moulding PP random copolymers decreased significantly.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Nippon Shokubai said it has decided to stop production of superabsorbent polymers (SAP) at some of its lower productivity units in Japan and Belgium with a total capacity of 60,000 t/y, due to a difficult and challenging market situation and cost structure, according to Apic-online.

Instead, the company will expand the same capacity in its existing production lines equipped with a higher effective production technology by debottlenecking as planned, depending on the market situation.

As MRC informed previously, in October 2020, Nippon Shokubai and Sanyo Chemical postponed their plan to merge via a share transfer, which would have formed an integrated holding company named Synfomix Co. The deal was announced in May 2019. The companies had planned to establish the holding company on 1 October 2020, located in Kyoto, Japan, subject to regulatory approval.

The companies say that the global outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting sharp decline in oil and oil product markets have made the business environment unpredictable. They say that significant changes in raw material prices and product prices, as well as heightened uncertainty surrounding product demand in the future made it difficult to carry out the planned business integration. Shokubai currently has a 5.0% stake in Sanyo. The biggest shareholders in Sanyo are Toyota Tsusho with 19.4% and Toray Industries with 17.3%.

We remind that JXTG Nippon Oil and Energy brought on-stream its cracker in Kawasaki on April 28,2020, following a turnaround. The cracker was shut for maintenance on February 27, 2020. Located at Kawasaki in Japan, the cracker has an ethylene production capacity of 460,000 mt/year and propylene production capacity of 235,000 mt/year.

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 1,868,160 tonnes in the first nine months of 2021, up by 18% year on year. Shipments of all grades of ethylene polymers increased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market were 1,138,510 tonnes in January-September 2021, up by 30% year on year. Supply of propylene homopolymer (homopolymer PP) and block-copolymers of propylene (PP block copolymers) increased, whereas supply of injection moulding statistical copolymers of propylene (PP random copolymers) decreased significantly.
MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- U.S. oil and gas major ExxonMobil announced it had made a final investment decision (FID) to build a multi-billion dollar petrochemical complex in south China's Guangdong province, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.

The firm did not specify a value for this investment. The decision, announced late on Monday, came nearly 18 mos after China's state news agency Xinhua reported in April last yr that the U.S. firm kicked off construction of the USD10 B venture in Dayawan in Huizhou city.

One of the few petrochemical complexes in China that are wholly owned by a foreign investor, ExxonMobil said the Dayawan plant will produce performance polymers used in packaging, automotive, agricultural, and consumer products for hygiene and personal care. China is the world's largest petrochemicals consumer and importer.

Construction is underway on the greenfield project, which includes a flexible feed steam cracker, three performance polyethylene lines, and two differentiated performance polypropylene lines, it added. The steam cracker will have a nameplate capacity of about 1.6 MM tons per yr.

Separately, ExxonMobil told Reuters in July that the firm was advancing project discussions with potential partners for an import terminal for liquefied natural gas also in Huizhou. The two projects are part of an initial agreement the U.S. firm signed with China in 2018.

ExxonMobil also owns a stake in a refinery and petrochemical complex in neighboring province of Fujian that is controlled by Chinese state refiner Sinopec Corp.

As per MRC, ExxonMobil plans to build its first, large-scale plastic waste advanced recycling facility in Baytown, Texas, and is expected to start operations by year-end 2022. By recycling plastic waste back into raw materials that can be used to make plastic and other valuable products, the technology could help address the challenge of plastic waste in the environment. A smaller, temporary facility, is already operational and producing commercial volumes of certified circular polymers that will be marketed by the end of this year to meet growing demand.

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 1,868,160 tonnes in the first nine months of 2021, up by 18% year on year. Shipments of all grades of ethylene polymers increased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market were 1,138,510 tonnes in the first nine months of 2021, up by 30% year on year. Supply of propylene homopolymer (homopolymer PP) and block-copolymers of propylene (PP block copolymers) increased, whereas supply of injection moulding PP random copolymers decreased significantly.

ExxonMobil is the largest non-government owned company in the energy industry and produces about 3% of the world"s oil and about 2% of the world"s energy.

MRC

1. U.S. demand for crude among refiners making gasoline and diesel surged

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Crude oil tanks at the Cushing, Oklahoma storage hub are more depleted than they have been in the last three years, and prices of further dated oil contracts suggest they will stay lower for months, said Reuters. U.S. demand for crude among refiners making gasoline and diesel has surged as the economy has recovered from the worst of the pandemic. Demand across the globe means other countries have looked to the United States for crude barrels, also boosting draws out of Cushing. Analysts expect the draw on inventories to continue in the short-term, which could further boost U.S. crude prices that have already climbed by about 25% in the last two months. The discount on U.S. crude futures to the international Brent benchmark should stay narrow. "Storage at Cushing alone has the potential to really rally the market to the moon," said Bob Yawger, director of energy futures at Mizuho.


MRC

MOSCOW (MRC) -- Crude oil futures inched higher in mid-morning trade in Asia Nov. 9 amid thin activity, though sentiment was pressured by reports that the US was considering taking action to curb rising oil prices, reported S&P Global.

At 10:11 am Singapore time (0211 GMT), the ICE January Brent futures contract was up 11 cents/b (0.13%) from the previous close at USD83.54/b, while the NYMEX December light sweet crude contract was similarly up 11 cents/b (0.13%) at USD82.04/b.

US Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said Nov. 8 that US President Joe Biden might take action this week to address soaring oil and gasoline prices. The US President has been vocal in recent weeks in calling on OPEC to raise output beyond their planned quotas and has blamed the group for the current high oil prices.

Analysts said the most likely option for the Biden administration was to tap its Strategic Petroleum Reserves. A ban on crude oil exports, an option that had been brought up by Granholm in the past, was less likely.

"The most obvious tool for the US administration to use is the Strategic Petroleum Reserve," said ING analysts Warren Patterson and Wenyu Yao in a note.

"Outside of mandated and SPR modernization sales (and a test sale in 2014), the last sale was part of a coordinated IEA release back in June 2011, which saw 30.6 million barrels released. There have also previously been suggestions that the US could implement a ban on crude oil exports. While we believe this is less likely, if such action was taken, it would lead to a widening in the WTI/Brent discount," Patterson and Yao said.

Nonetheless, there are signs that the OPEC+ group continues to face difficulty in ramping up output to required levels.

As MRC informed before, US commercial crude stocks fell 3.48 million barrels to 413.96 million barrels in the week ended Sept. 17, to more than 8% below the five-year average, Energy Information Administration data showed. Stocks were last lower Oct. 5, 2018.

We remind that in late August, 2021, US crude stocks dropped sharply while petroleum products supplied by refiners hit an all-time record despite the rise in coronavirus cases nationwide, the Energy Information Administration said. Crude inventories fell by 7.2 million barrels in the week to Aug. 27 to 425.4 million barrels, compared with analysts' expectations in a Reuters poll for a 3.1 million-barrel drop. Product supplied by refineries, a measure of demand, rose to 22.8 million barrels per day in the most recent week. That's a one-week record, and signals strength in consumption for diesel, gasoline and other fuels by consumers and exporters.

We also remind that US crude oil production is expected to fall by 160,000 barrels per day (bpd) in 2021 to 11.12 million bpd, the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) said in a monthly report, a smaller decline than its previous forecast for a drop of 210,000 bpd.
MRC