China: Sinopec estimated to trim Mar daily crude throughput by 3.07% to 573,000mt

Chemical News: China: Sinopec estimated to trim Mar daily crude throughput by 3.07% to 573,000mt

https://www.chemnet.com Mar 11,2011
Refineries affiliated to Sinopec are forecast to process a combined 17.7-17.8-mil mt of crude in March, with daily consumption slightly down 3.07% from the previous month to 573,000mt, C1's research showed.

The daily throughput touched the lowest level of the first quarter.

Guangzhou Petrochemical's 5.2-mil-mt/yr crude distillate unit and Wuhan Petrochemical's 400,000-mt/yr hydrogen unit would still be in turnarounds in March. Jingmen Petrochemical and Jinling Petrochemical put a combined 7-mil-mt/yr of topping capacity into maintenance in early March, crude consumption of which dropped 63% and 23%, respectively. In addition, Qingdao Refining & Chemical had to lower March crude throughput by 7% after a 2.9-mil-mt/yr fluid catalytic unit conked out.

However, Sinopec's March daily crude throughput would be still 6% higher than a year earlier, mainly due to rising throughput of newly-built units and high run rates of most subsidiary refineries.

Sinopec is expected to see higher crude throughput in April, when many underlying refineries would resume normal operations from maintenance.

Print | add to Favorites | Close