China’s crude imports for May increase by 9.8% year on year

Fanny Zhang

09-Jun-2014

SINGAPORE (ICIS)–China imported approximately 26.1m tonnes of crude oil in May this year, an increase of 9.8% from a year ago but a decrease of 6.5% from April, official customs data showed over the weekend.

Total crude imports in the first five months of 2014 expanded by 11.1% year on year to 128.7m tonnes, according to China’s customs data.

Industry sources said the big rise in crude imports for the January-May period could be mainly driven by reserve demand as China’s refinery throughput increased slightly only.

ICIS data showed that Chinese refineries’ crude throughput in the first five months of this year inched up by only 1.7% from a year ago to around 200m tonnes.

Meanwhile, China’s rubber imports for May were flat from the corresponding period last year at 310,000 tonnes, the data showed.

 

May 2014

Jan-May 2014

‘000 tonnes

chg % (yoy)

‘000 tonnes

chg % (yoy)

imports

Crude

26,080

9.8

128,690

11.1

oil products

1,810

-54.8

12,900

-29.6

primary shape plastics

2,120

4.4

10,730

12.7

rubber

310

0.0

1,900

12.1

exports

Crude

-100.0

250

-69.6

oil products

2,220

-19.0

11,430

-10.1

plastic products

870

7.4

3,700

5.5

Source: China Customs

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