Independent refineries in Shandong Province held about 457,000mt of oil product inventories in total on Jul 18, slightly down 14,000mt or 3% from two weeks ago, C1's research showed.
Of the stockpiles, about 238,000mt was gasoline, down 16,000mt or 6.3%; gasoil inched up by 2,000mt or 1% to 219,000mt.
Oil product sales were affected by soft demand recently, but gasoline stockpile slightly fell as summer peak season started, market sources pointed out.
Shandong independent refineries may see no obvious improvements in sales in the near term if crude futures still fluctuated in a narrow range, the sources predicted.
C1's research involves 20 independent refineries with annual topping capacities totaling 44.1-mil mt, which accounts for 77.23% of the total refining capacity of independent refineries in Shandong. These refineries have a combined 661,000-mt storage capacity for gasoline and 881,000-mt for gasoil.
