Crude oil imports into China last month went up by 3.9% on September 2024, flowing at an average daily rate of some 11.5 million barrels, Reuters calculated, citing official customs data from Beijing.
The rise in crude imports was accompanied by an increase in refinery processing rates to 81.05%, which was the highest since the start of the year for state refiners. Independents, commonly called teapots by the media, also raised their utilization rate, to some 62%.
Yet import rates were lower on the month, by 4.5%, Reuters noted in its report, citing data from energy analytics provider Kpler. The decline was especially pronounced in shipments from Iran, the publication said. However, the reason for the dip was not directly related to changes in demand. Rather, it reflected quota exhaustion.
“The month-on-month decline mainly reflected tight import quotas for independent refineries, which curbed purchases of Russian and Iranian barrels, while narrower arbitrage in June also reduced inflows from Brazil and West Africa, which were loaded in July and August,” Kpler analyst Muyu Xu said, as quoted by Reuters.
Flows from Iran may remain subdued after the United States last week slapped new sanctions on a Chinese independent refiner, an import terminal, and a host of individuals and vessels for participating in the trade with Iranian crude.
China’s crude oil imports got off to a slow start this year but picked up in the spring, to remain robust as the country stocked up on discounted Russian and Iranian crude. China is even building new storage capacity at the moment, to keep stockpiling the commodity, despite forecasts that demand growth is about to peak in a couple of years. The average rate of stockpiling since the start of 2025 has been estimated at around 990,000 barrels daily. The new storage capacity will add 169 million barrels to the country’s current total.
By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com
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