rongsheng refinery quotation

SINGAPORE, Oct 14 (Reuters) - Rongsheng Petrochemical, the trading arm of Chinese private refiner Zhejiang Petrochemical, has bought at least 5 million barrels of crude for delivery in December and January next year in preparation for starting a new crude unit by year-end, five trade sources said on Wednesday.

Rongsheng bought at least 3.5 million barrels of Upper Zakum crude from the United Arab Emirates and 1.5 million barrels of al-Shaheen crude from Qatar via a tender that closed on Tuesday, the sources said.

Rongsheng’s purchase helped absorbed some of the unsold supplies from last month as the company did not purchase any spot crude in past two months, the sources said.

Zhejiang Petrochemical plans to start trial runs at one of two new crude distillation units (CDUs) in the second phase of its refinery-petrochemical complex in east China’s Zhoushan by the end of this year, a company official told Reuters. Each CDU has a capacity of 200,000 barrels per day (bpd).

Zhejiang Petrochemical started up the first phase of its complex which includes a 400,000-bpd refinery and a 1.2 million tonne-per-year ethylene plant at the end of 2019. (Reporting by Florence Tan and Chen Aizhu, editing by Louise Heavens and Christian Schmollinger)

In a move to encourage higher refinery production to help a struggling economy, authorities earlier this month issued a small portion of the first-batch crude oil import quotas for 2023, months ahead of the usual timeline.

Miserable Chinese refinery margins will constrain runs among integrated refineries, incl major firms like Hengli & Rongsheng, whose profits fell by 90% y/y in Q3 22.expects low margins to persist into Q2 2023 -> cautious crude purchases.

2021 marked the start of the central government’s latest effort to consolidate and tighten supervision over the refining sector and to cap China’s overall refining capacity.[14] Besides imposing a hefty tax on imports of blending fuels, Beijing has instituted stricter tax and environmental enforcement[15] measures including: performing refinery audits and inspections;[16] conducting investigations of alleged irregular activities such as tax evasion and illegal resale of crude oil imports;[17] and imposing tighter quotas for oil product exports as China’s decarbonization efforts advance.[18]

Yet, of the three most recent major additions to China’s greenfield refinery landscape, none are in Shandong province, home to a little over half the country’s independent refining capacity. Hengli’s Changxing integrated petrochemical complex is situated in Liaoning, Zhejiang’s (ZPC) Zhoushan facility in Zhejiang, and Shenghong’s Lianyungang plant in Jiangsu.[21]

As China’s independent oil refining hub, Shandong is the bellwether for the rationalization of the country’s refinery sector. Over the years, Shandong’s teapots benefited from favorable policies such as access to cheap land and support from a local government that grew reliant on the industry for jobs and contributions to economic growth.[22] For this reason, Shandong officials had resisted strictly implementing Beijing’s directives to cull teapot refiners and turned a blind eye to practices that ensured their survival.

In 2016, during the period of frenzied post-licensing crude oil importing by Chinese independents, Saudi Arabia began targeting teapots on the spot market, as did Kuwait. Iran also joined the fray, with the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) operating through an independent trader Trafigura to sell cargoes to Chinese independents.[27] Since then, the coming online of major new greenfield refineries such as Rongsheng ZPC and Hengli Changxing, and Shenghong, which are designed to operate using medium-sour crude, have led Middle East producers to pursue long-term supply contracts with private Chinese refiners. In 2021, the combined share of crude shipments from Saudi Arabia, UAE, Oman, and Kuwait to China’s independent refiners accounted for 32.5%, an increase of more than 8% over the previous year.[28] This is a trend that Beijing seems intent on supporting, as some bigger, more sophisticated private refiners whose business strategy aligns with President Xi’s vision have started to receive tax benefits or permissions to import larger volumes of crude directly from major producers such as Saudi Arabia.[29]

The shift in Saudi Aramco’s market strategy to focus on customer diversification has paid off in the form of valuable supply relationships with Chinese independents. And Aramco’s efforts to expand its presence in the Chinese refining market and lock in demand have dovetailed neatly with the development of China’s new greenfield refineries.[30] Over the past several years, Aramco has collaborated with both state-owned and independent refiners to develop integrated liquids-to-chemicals complexes in China. In 2018, following on the heels of an oil supply agreement, Aramco purchased a 9% stake in ZPC’s Zhoushan integrated refinery. In March of this year, Saudi Aramco and its joint venture partners, NORINCO Group and Panjin Sincen, made a final investment decision (FID) to develop a major liquids-to-chemicals facility in northeast China.[31] Also in March, Aramco and state-owned Sinopec agreed to conduct a feasibility study aimed at assessing capacity expansion of the Fujian Refining and Petrochemical Co. Ltd.’s integrated refining and chemical production complex.[32]

State oil giant Saudi Aramco signed an agreement on Thursday to invest in a refinery-petrochemical project in eastern China, part of its strategy to expand in downstream operations globally.

The memorandum of understanding between the company and Zhejiang province included plans to invest in a new refinery and co-operate in crude oil supply, storage and trading, according to details released by the Zhoushan government after a signing ceremony in the city south of Shanghai.

Zhejiang Petrochemical, 51 percent owned by textile giant Zhejiang Rongsheng Holding Group, is building a 400,000-barrels-per-day refinery and associated petrochemical facilities that was expected to start operations by the end of this year.

Aramco also owns part of the Fujian refinery-petrochemical plant with Sinopec and Exxon Mobil Corp, and has plans to build a 300,000-bpd refinery with China’s Norinco. It is also in talks with PetroChina to invest in a refinery in Yunnan.

China"s Rongsheng Petrochemical purchased a total of six VLCCs of crudes in its July-loading crude buy tender. All of the cargoes were Middle Eastern grades. The purchasing volume doubled from the company"s June procurements, or three VLCCs. Demand apparently recovered as refining volumes increased after an end of maintenance. The details such as volumes for each grade, and sellers were unknown but the company procured six grades - Oman, Abu Dhabi Murban, Das, Upper Zakum and Basrah Light and Basrah Medium.

In the trade of Iraqi grades, the country"s State Oil Marketing Organization (SOMO) largely clinched term deals for Basrah Medium and Basrah Heavy for January to December 2022 loading. Of these, China"s Rongsheng Petrochemical and Hengli Petrochemical were newly said to have new annual term contracts with SOMO. Both of the refiners purchased Basrah but these purchases were on spot transactions.

Hengli Petchem and Zhejiang Rongsheng"s new 400,000 bpd refinery each in Dalian and Zhoushan, respectively, are expected to come on stream in the last quarter of this year. In the same quarter, CNPC"s 100,000 bpd and Sinopec"s 200,000 bpd incremental capacity in Huabei and Zhanjiang, respectively, are also expected to become operational, they said.

Bloomberg quoted another industry executive as saying that the economic decline that gripped China earlier this year amid the lockdowns is now over and refining rates are on the rise. Gasoline consumption has also picked up and will lead the rebound in fuel demand, Chen Hongbing, deputy general manager at Rongsheng Petrochemical said at the industry event.

Saudi Aramco is reportedly set to sign an agreement to purchase a stake in a refinery and petrochemical project in eastern China. Aramco"s senior vice-president of downstream, Abdulaziz al-Judaimi, has been quoted in media reports as saying that the Saudi energy giant is set to invest in the Zhejiang project in eastern China.

The Zhejiang Petrochemical Company, 51 per cent owned by Chinese textile major Rongsheng Holding Group, plans to start its 400,000 barrels a day (b/d) refinery, which is integrated with a petrochemical plant in the eastern province of Zhejiang, in late 2018.

Last month, Aramco signed a long-term deal with Rongsheng to supply about 170,000 b/d crude oil for the project, to be located in the port city of Zhoushan.

Aramco also owns part of the Fujian integrated refinery and petrochemical complex with Sinopec and Exxon Mobil Corp, and has plans to build a 300,000 b/d refinery with China’s Norinco.