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Beijing / Reuters
China’s crude oil imports surged to an all-time high in March to nearly 9.2 million barrels per day (bpd), customs data showed on Thursday, far surpassing expectations and overtaking the United States as independent refiners ramped up their purchases. The March imports came in at 38.95 million tonnes, or 9.17 million bpd, according to the General Customs Administration. That compared with 8.286 million bpd in February and far exceeded an earlier record of 8.57mn bpd in December.
Both the March and the first-quarter import levels were above those of the United States according to data from the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), making China the world’s top crude oil buyer so far this year.
The shipments were in part driven by independent oil refiners’ rush to purchase oil after they received fresh 2017 quotas around mid-January. “This rush of buying were mostly for March arriving cargoes. In our case, the amount of crude oil we bought for March exceeded the total for the first two months,†said a trading manager with Shandong Dongming Petrochemical Group, the country’s largest independent oil processor.