China’s refinery throughput builds in April

Oil

China’s crude oil refinery inputs increased by 990K b/d (or 7.5%) y-o-y and 10K b/d m-o-m to 14.15M b/d in April, rising after previously falling to a six-month low in March, according to data from the Chinese National Bureau of Statistics. Despite this growth processing remains down by 110K b/d from the peak level of 14.26M b/d reached in November 2020, as high oil product inventories and maintenance at some state-run refineries has slowed throughput, Reuters report. Sinopec’s Shanghai petrochemical plant and Yanshan refinery slashed their operations by around half during April amid planned maintenance, with output at independent facilities in the crude oil refining hub of Shandong also falling by 3.9% m-o-m to 68.45%.