Chinese oil demand surges to record high as refiners raise rates
5/16/2016 12:00:00 AM
BEIJING, May 16 (Reuters) -- China's April preliminary oil demand rose 1.7% from a year ago as refining throughput rose as independent refiners increased their processing runs and as fuel exports dropped.
China consumed about 10.62 MMbpd of oil in April, a record daily consumption volume, according to Reuters calculations based on preliminary government data published on Friday.
The gain in demand, which excludes adjustments of oil stocks, was mainly due to an increase in refinery throughput in part at independent plants.
In April, Chinese refiners processed 10.89 MMbpd of crude oil, up 2.4% year on year, data from the statistics bureau showed. The figure compared to March's runs at 10.58 MMbpd.
Throughput for the January to April period rose 2.9% on year to about 10.69 MMbpd.
China's refined fuel exports fell to 3.68 million tons in April from 3.75 million tons in the previous month. A year ago, China was a net importer of refined oil products.
The implied oil demand is the sum of domestic refinery throughput and net imports of refined products.
(Reporting by Meng Meng and Chen Aizhu; Editing by Christian Schmollinger)
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