A new plant owned by Hengli Petrochemical (600346.SS), capable of processing 400,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude, reached full operations in late May, while a similar-sized plant owned by Zhejiang Petrochemical has started trial runs.
* China June crude oil imports at 39.88 mln tonnes – RTRS calculation
June imports by the world’s largest crude oil importer came in at 39.58 million tonnes, according to data from the General Administration of Customs.
That works out to 9.63 million bpd, up 1.7% from 9.47 million bpd level in May and up from 8.36 million bpd a year ago.
For the first six months of 2019, crude imports grew 8.8% from a year earlier to 244.6 million tonnes or about 9.87 million bpd. READ MORE – reuters.com
At the same time, Senior administration officials said that China defied U.S. sanctions when it imported more than a million barrels of crude oil from Iran last month. But they are grappling with whether — and how — to hit back, according to three U.S. officials.