Refining margins of independent refineries in Shandong Province with straight-run fuel oil as feedstock lessened in negative territory on rises in sales margins, C1's survey found.
Based on Wednesday's prices of spot M100 fuel oil in Shandong market, local refineries' refining margins averaged minus Yuan 37/mt on paper, versus minus Yuan 77/mt two weeks ago and minus Yuan 649/mt a year earlier, C1 estimated.
In the past two weeks, in Shandong market, wholesale prices of gasoline and hydrogenated naphtha both edged up Yuan 50/mt, gasoil rose by Yuan 75/mt, petcoke rebounded Yuan 50/mt on low inventories, while LPG plunged Yuan 205/mt and slurry remained unchanged.
In the period, cost of feedstock straight-run fuel oil kept flat at Yuan 5,550/mt in the spot market, C1's data showed.
If calculated by Wednesday's CFR price of M100 fuel oil, which was about US$657.25/mt, Shandong independent refineries would suffer from minus Yuan 744/mt of refining margin.
C1 calculated oil refining margins of independent refineries mainly on the basis of C1's intraday price assessments of spot feedstock and products of these refineries, as well as average output ratio of the products. C1 also took into consideration the average processing cost of the domestic oil refining industry, transportation cost, consumption tax, value-added tax and losses, etc., while excluding the other costs like financial cost and sales tax, etc.
