China's April crude oil throughput fell to the lowest since August 2022, official data showed on Monday, as the Iran war curbed refinery runs in the world's second-largest oil consumer.
Refinery throughput fell 5.8 per cent from a year earlier to 54.65 million tonnes, or about 13.3 million barrels per day, data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed.
Throughput in the first four months dropped 0.5 per cent from a year earlier to 238.95 million tonnes, or 14.54 million bpd, according to the data.
Chinese refiners' average crude processing utilisation rate slipped to 63.59 per cent in April, down 4.7 percentage points from a year earlier, and was down 5.13 percentage points from March, according to Chinese consultancy Oilchem.
The run cuts were due to negative oil-processing margins, and Chinese independent refineries are expected to deepen the cuts in May despite Beijing urging small refiners to maintain fuel production.
Chinese refiners suffered losses of CNY649 ($90) for each tonne of crude processed in April versus a profit of CNY269 a year earlier, Chinese consultancy SCI said in a note.
Some of the smaller refiners had to shut their plants for maintenance in May.
Although refinery operating rates in China declined, refiners raised gasoline and diesel yields. Combined with demand destruction from higher oil prices, this pushed gasoline and diesel inventories higher, Oilchem said in the report.
"China barely drew on crude inventories in April, as fuel output only needed to meet domestic demand amid export restrictions from mid-March," said Emma Li, analyst at ship-tracking firm Vortexa.
China's April oil imports dropped 20 per cent year-on-year to 38.47 million tonnes, or 9.36 million barrels per day, hitting the lowest level in almost four years, a steeper decline than the drop in oil throughput.
China's onshore inventory level also increased by 17 million barrels, according to Vortexa.
The data also showed April domestic crude production at 17.94 million tonnes, or 4.37 million bpd, up 1.2 per cent year-on-year.
China's oil production in the first four months was 72.74 million tonnes, or 4.43 million bpd, down 0.5 per cent compared with a year earlier.
Natural gas output rose 1.9 per cent in April to 21.9 billion cubic metres, and output in the first four months totalled 90 bcm, up 2.7 per cent year-on-year.
(Reporting by Sam Li and Lewis Jackson; Editing by Jacqueline Wong)
