China's crude throughput aggregated 35.56-mil mt in June, slightly down 0.7% from the same period last year, the first fall in 2010, data published by the National Bureau of Statistics showed.
Major refineries went into maintenance peak period in June. In Northeast China, crude throughput dropped 4.57% year-on-year on the shut-down of 19-mil-mt/yr crude distillation units. Northwest China saw 2.09% of decline in crude throughput as 12-mil-mt/yr CDUs went into turnaround. Shandong closed 15-mil-mt/yr CDUs or 34% of its topping capacity for maintenance, which caused a 4.79% of drop in crude consumption.
Accumulatively crude throughput in the first six month of the year increased 7.1% from the same period last year to 222.96-mil mt, showed the NBS data.
Most domestic regions saw rises in crude throughput in the first half of the year, among which, South and Southwest China recorded year-on-year growth of 16.42% and 17.75%, respectively.
Industry sources predicted that increase in crude throughput would be limited in July due to fire accidents in two major refineries mid-July.
CNOOC's 12-mil-mt/yr Huizhou refinery lowered run rate to 70% because of explosion of a 2-mil-mt/yr catalytic reformer on Jul 11. PetroChina’s 20.5-mil-mt/yr Dalian Petrochemical cut operating rate to 60-70% after the shutdown of 10-mil-mt/yr crude distillate unit caused by fire on Jul 16.
