By Sam Li and Lewis Jackson
(Reuters) -China’s July crude oil imports rose 11.5% from the same month a year ago as state-owned refineries maintained high operating rates, although the inbound shipments slowed month-on-month after hitting their highest in nearly two years in June.
The world’s largest crude oil importer brought in 47.2 million metric tons of oil in July, equivalent to 11.12 million barrels per day, data from the General Administration of Customs showed on Thursday. The volume was down by 5.4% compared with 49.89 million tons in June, the data showed.
“Independent refiners bought heavily in June, building up inventories, so their immediate demand in July was lower,” said Muyu Xu, senior crude oil analyst at Kpler.
Total crude oil imports from January to July stood at 326.57 million tons, or 11.25 million bpd, up 2.8% from the same period last year, the customs data also showed.
The country’s refinery utilisation rate rose to 71.84% in July, up 1.02 percentage points from June and 3.56 percentage points from a year earlier, according to consultancy Oilchem.
State-owned refiners increased their run rates month-on-month, while independent refiners reduced them, Oilchem said.
Maintenance had reduced overall refining throughput by 79 million tons in July, but three refineries with total capacity of 28.7 million tons completed maintenance and came back online, it said.
Thursday’s data also showed China’s refined fuel exports rose 7.25% in July to 5.34 million tons from a year earlier.
Natural gas imports – including piped gas and liquefied natural gas – fell 2.1% year-on-year to 10.63 million tons, the data showed.
(Reporting by Sam Li and Lewis Jackson; Editing by Tom Hogue)
