Major Chinese refineries ran at 83.8% of capacity on average on Jun 2, notably down 4.8 percentage points from two weeks ago, down 3.8 percentage points from a year earlier, C1's research showed.
The decline was mainly attributable to Dalian Petrochemical's maintenance of a 10-mil-mt/yr crude distillate unit. In addition, Gaoqiao Petrochemical lowered operation rate by 22 percentage points because of maintenance of some secondary units.
All the other refineries under PetroChina and Sinopec kept operation rates high in early June, except Fujian Refining & Petrochemical that ran at less than 80% of capacity, C1 found.
The above figures were obtained through computation on the basis of primary refining capacities of refineries. If calculated on the basis of their complex refining ratio, the average run rate would be 90%, down 5.15 percentage points from two weeks ago.
The average run rate is estimated to fall to around 79% in the second half of June, as Qingdao refinery, Jinxi Petrochemical, Jilin Petrochemical and Lanzhou Petrochemical are scheduled to start maintenance then. Most of these refineries are subsidiary to PetroChina, which is likely to result in a notable drop in the oil giant's crude throughput in June.
C1's research involves 23 refineries with annual refining capacity amounting to 281-mil mt.
