Refineries affiliated to Sinopec are scheduled to process a combined 54.5-mil mt of crude in the third quarter of 2011, with daily consumption down 1.7% from actual throughput of the previous quarter, according to refinery sources.
The refiner plans to shut 29.3-mil mt per year of refining capacity for maintenance in the period; meantime, some subsidiary refineries will slightly lower crude throughput on hefty inventories of petrochemical light oil, the sources said.
The target for the third quarter was 5% higher than a year earlier, C1’s data showed.
Tianjin Petrochemical, Changling Petrochemical and Tahe Petrochemical will continue to step up crude runs with new refining units on stream. In addition, most major refineries in eastern coasts and along the Yangtze River have been running at high rates this year.
Sinopec refined 54.85-mil mt of crude in the second quarter of this year, lower than the target of 56-mil mt.
Market sources ascribed the lower-than-scheduled throughput to high feedstock costs and sluggish demand for downstream chemicals. Emergent maintenance of Qingdao Petrochemical and Shijiazhuang Refinery also affected throughput.
Sinopec set crude consumption plan for the whole year of 2011 at 220-mil mt, sharply up 8.4% from 2010, as C1 reported previously.
