Hong Kong — China's Sinopec is expected to reach its throughput target for 2018, despite plans to lower its operation rate in the second half to 81%, the company's interim results showed.
The world's biggest refiner by capacity, Sinopec, plans to crack 121 million mt of crude in the July-December period, the company said on its interim report released Sunday.
This will account for about 81.4% of its total capacity of 294.7 million mt/year, one percentage point lower compared with the 82.6% utilization rate recorded in H1.
Sinopec had processed 120.72 million mt of crude oil during January-June.
Despite plans for a lower run rate in H2, Sinopec's throughput could hit 241.72 million mt for the whole year, slightly higher compared with its earlier target of processing 239 million mt in 2018.
The company expects China's economy to maintain a steady growth in H2, while demand for refined oil products and petrochemicals to increase steadily, with robust demand for high-end products.
Sinopec plans to continue adjusting its product mix by further lowering the gasoil yield and lifting its gasoline and jet fuel yields. It plans to complete upgrading projects this year to produce gasoline and gasoil which comply with National Phase VI emission standard, similar to that of EURO VI.
In H1, its gasoil yield fell to 26.6%, from 27.7% a year ago. Its gasoline and jet yield gained slightly to 24.9% and 11.8%, from 24.1% and 11.1%, respectively.
In the upstream sector, its domestic crude production edged up 0.4% year on year to 123.68 million barrels in the first six months, contrasted to a 2% year on year decline in China's total crude production.
In addition, the company's natural gas output registered a 5.3% year on year increase to 476.20 Bcf, stronger than China's total production growth of 4.6% in January-June.
Sinopec plans to produce 125 million barrels of crude and produce 497.8 Bcf of natural gas in H2.
"We will accelerate profitable development of new oilfields and resume production of suspended wells, deepen the structural adjustments of mature fields, and increase yields of profitable crude oil in H2," it said.
"In natural gas development, we will advance key projects for capacity construction, enhance the efficiency and quality of developed gas fields, as well as promote synergy of production, supply, storage and marketing to push forward the development of natural gas," it added.
The company spent Yuan 23.69 billion ($3.47 billion) in H1, far below its capital expenditure target of Yuan 117 billion for 2018.