China's crude imports increased 3.9% from the previous year in September as refineries ran at their highest rates of utilisation this year.

China, the world's biggest crude importer, imported 47.25 millions metric tons of oil during September, according to data released by the General Administration of Customs on Monday. This is the equivalent of 11,5 million barrels of oil per day.

Oilchem, a Chinese consulting firm, said that China's refinery utilization rates in September rose to their highest levels for the year, with relatively high daily gasoline and diesel production, although supply continued to exceed demand.

Oilchem reported that atmospheric and vacuum distillation units in Chinese refineries were operating at 73.45% capacity. This is up 1.28 percentages points since August and 3.22 points compared to a year ago.

Oilchem said that the utilisation of state-owned refineries increased by 3.55 percentages points over the past year, to 81.05%, while that of independent refiners rose by 3.02 percentages points, to 62.17%.

The consulting firm reported that 14 refineries were maintained in September. This is two less than August. Their combined capacity was 70.4 million tonnes per year. This is down 12.3 millions from the previous month.

Kpler data shows that China's crude oil imports by sea fell to the lowest level since May in September, and that shipments from Iran were at their lowest point since January.

The decline in crude oil prices was mainly due to tighter import quotas that were imposed on independent refineries. This led them to reduce their purchases of Russian and Iranian barrels. A narrower arbitrage also decreased inflows in June from Brazil and West Africa which had been loaded in July or August," MuyuXu, senior analyst for Kpler, said.

The total imports of crude oil in the first nine month of this year were up by 2.6% to 423 million tonnes, reflecting China’s continued stockpiling.

Imports of both pipeline natural gas and LNG, which includes both liquefied gas and natural gas in a cylinder (LNG), dropped 7.8% to 11,05 million tons in September from the same period last year.

In the first nine-month period, China imported 92.86 millions tons of LNG. This is a 6.2% decrease on last year. 1 metric ton crude oil = 7.3 barrels (Reporting and editing by Sam Li, Lewis Jackson)

(source: Reuters)