China has issued 8.395 million tonnes of export quotas for gasoline, jet fuel and diesel in its third batch of allowances this year, trade sources said.
That was slightly higher than the eight million tonnes issued for last year's third batch of export quotas.
Official quotas issued for the year for these three products to date come to 40.195 million tonnes, in line with 41 million tonnes a year ago.
State oil majors Sinopec and CNPC were given a combined allowance of around 6.05 million tonnes, or 60 per cent of the third batch, the sources said.
Private refiner Zhejiang Petrochemical was allotted up to 620,000 tonnes, they added.
China's ministry of commerce did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment via fax.
The country manages its oil products exports via a quota system to ensure sufficient supplies for the local market.
For low-sulphur marine fuel, Sinopec was the sole company to gain an allowance in this batch, receiving 700,000 tonnes, the sources said, lower than the one million tonnes issued a year ago.
This brings the total quota issuance for low-sulphur fuel oil to 13.9 million tonnes so far this year, up from 13 million tonnes a year earlier.
Separately, at the end of July, several Chinese majors received approval to switch quotas received in the second batch between the two categories of fuels to maximise their export margins, trade sources said.
(Reporting by Trixie Yap, Siyi Liu, and Florence Tan; Additional reporting by Sam Li and Jeslyn Lerh; Editing by David Goodman and Edwina Gibbs)