Operation rates of minor refineries in South China's Guangdong Province was 16% on average Thursday, slightly down 1 percentage point from one week ago, down 11% from a year earlier, C1's research found.
Five minor refineries were in operation in total at present, with feedstock throughput reaching 5,700mt per day, down 300mt on week.
The refineries with straight-run fuel oil as feedstock have been suffering from about minus Yuan 300/mt of refining margin in the past week because of lofty feedstock costs, according to refinery sources.
C1's data showed that South China had received no straight-run fuel oil cargoes since February.
Some refineries had turned to home-produced feedstock, revealed a refinery source. A local refinery was anticipated to receive 122,000mt of heavy crude in two cargoes in recent week, indicated C1's shipping fixtures.
Guangdong has 17 minor refineries, all of which are involved in C1's survey. Refining capacities of these refineries amount to 12.65-mil mt per year.
