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China's petroleum imports rebounded in November, but so did storage flows: Russell

China's crude oil imports in November struck a 14month high, however much of the additional volume is most likely to have ended up in storage as refinery processing remained controlled.

China, the world's greatest crude importer, had a surplus of about 1.77 million barrels daily (bpd) in November, according to computations based upon main data.

This is the second-biggest month-to-month surplus this year and behind only the 1.85 million bpd in August.

The scale of the excess crude deteriorates any bullish interpretation of the rebound in November's oil imports.

China does not divulge the volumes of crude flowing into or out of strategic and industrial stockpiles, however a price quote can be made by deducting the quantity of unrefined processed from the overall of unrefined available from imports and domestic output.

China's refineries processed 58.51 million metric tons of crude in November, equivalent to about 14.24 million bpd, according to data released on Monday by the National Bureau of Stats.

This was up a small 0.2% from November in 2015, marking the first month in seven that refinery throughput has risen from the same month in 2023.

China imported 11.81 million bpd in November, the strongest month given that August last year and up 14.3% from November 2023.

Domestic output increased 0.2% in November from the year-earlier month to 4.20 million bpd.

Integrating imports and domestic production provides an overall of 16.01 million bpd of unrefined available to refineries.

Subtracting the volume processed of 14.21 million bpd leaves a surplus of 1.77 million bpd.

For the first 11 months of the year, China's surplus crude was about 1.12 million bpd, about 360,000 bpd more than what was stored over 2023 as a whole.

It's worth keeping in mind that not all of this surplus crude is likely to have been added to storage, with some being processed in plants not caught by the official information.

But even enabling spaces in the main data, it's likely that China has been importing crude at a far greater rate than it needs to fulfill its domestic fuel requirements.

LOWER COSTS

The question is why are China's refiners buying greatly more crude than they are processing?

It's quite clear that domestic fuel need is not reinforcing, and may have already peaked when it concerns gasoline given the rise in sales of electric lorries.

Diesel need is also weaker, having been struck by the switch to trucks powered by liquefied gas.

It's more likely that China's refiners are stockpiling on crude due to the fact that they deem present prices to be reasonable and they are hedging versus any rally next year.

Global benchmark Brent unrefined futures were in a. drop at the time when November-arriving cargoes would have. been set up.

Brent went from a high of $87.95 a barrel on July 5 to a low. of $69.00 on Sept. 11, simply around the time that much of. November's freights would have been arranged.

Considering that the September low Brent reached a peak of $81.16 a. barrel on Oct. 7, but if this rally did trigger China's refiners. to reduce back on purchases, this will just show up in freights. getting here in January.

However, given that the October high, Brent has reduced back to. trade in a relatively narrow variety anchored around $73 a barrel,. which is a level likely to be low enough to motivate continuous. buying interest by China's refiners.

The technique for the oil market is not to puzzle higher. imports by China with a recovery in actual consumption of fuels.

While more powerful imports will act to support crude costs, it. will take a sustained healing in refinery processing to. persuade the market that China is once again showing strong oil. need growth.

The views expressed here are those of the author, a. columnist .

(source: Reuters)