Refineries affiliated to Sinopec are forecast to process a combined 17.7-17.8-mil mt of crude in March, with daily consumption slightly down 3.07% from the previous month to 573,000mt, C1's research showed.
The daily throughput touched the lowest level of the first quarter.
Guangzhou Petrochemical's 5.2-mil-mt/yr crude distillate unit and Wuhan Petrochemical's 400,000-mt/yr hydrogen unit would still be in turnarounds in March. Jingmen Petrochemical and Jinling Petrochemical put a combined 7-mil-mt/yr of topping capacity into maintenance in early March, crude consumption of which dropped 63% and 23%, respectively. In addition, Qingdao Refining & Chemical had to lower March crude throughput by 7% after a 2.9-mil-mt/yr fluid catalytic unit conked out.
However, Sinopec's March daily crude throughput would be still 6% higher than a year earlier, mainly due to rising throughput of newly-built units and high run rates of most subsidiary refineries.
Sinopec is expected to see higher crude throughput in April, when many underlying refineries would resume normal operations from maintenance.
