China's crude oil import significantly increased in November. Customs record shows that the country reached its highest monthly import last month beating its record in October. heavy buying from private refineries and the start of new mega-refineries in the country attributed to the increase in import.
The record shows that China's crude oil import last month increased by 8.5 percent, reaching 10.43 million barrels per day (bpd). It was the first time that the country imported more than 10 million bpd. The country's import in October reached 9.61 bpn. China imported 418.11 million tonnes of overseas crude oil during the first 11 months this year.
One of the factors that increased the country's import is the strong demand brought by newly opened refineries like the 400,000 bpd project which is operated by Hengli. It is a private firm from the northeastern port Dalian. The company planned its test runs in November.
Zhejiang Petrochemical Corp is another major company that caused a significant increase in the country's import. The company is also planning to test run their refining units at its 400,000 bpd refineries in Zhoushan this year end. Zhejiang imported Oman crude oil in the fourth quarter.
Refinitive Oil Research and Forecast noted the country's private refineries imported about 8.57 million tonnes of crude last month. Their average purchase is around 1.94 million barrels per day. According to Emma Li, aRefinitiv analyst, Zhejiang received two VLCC's of crude last month. Dalian Hengli also purchased 540,000 tonnes of Arab crude oil in November.
According to the General Administration of Customs preliminary data, the country's yearly crude oil import record increased by 15.7 percent reaching its highest of 10.48 million bpd in November.
China's over-all natural gas import soared 25.6 percent year on year reaching 9.15 million tons in the month of November. The country also set its new record for natural gas import. The increase in the country's natural gas import is caused by its campaign which promotes cleaner fuels for winter heating. The demand for natural gas increased significantly since the government started the campaign two years ago. The country's gas import increased by 33 percent than last year. Gas import is at 81.19 tonnes for the first 11 months of 2018.
The country's export and import grow at a slow pace amidst its increasing oil and gas overseas purchase. The country's November export increased at its slowest at about 5.4 percent since a 3 percent contraction in March.
