rongsheng petrochemical refinery pricelist

China"s private refiner Zhejiang Petroleum & Chemical is set to start trial runs at its second 200,000 b/d crude distillation unit at the 400,000 b/d phase 2 refinery by the end of March, a source with close knowledge about the matter told S&P Global Platts March 9.

ZPC cracked 23 million mt of crude in 2020, according the the source. Platts data showed that the utilization rate of its phase 1 refinery hit as high as 130% in a few months last year.

Started construction in the second half of 2019, units of the Yuan 82.9 billion ($12.74 billion) phase 2 refinery almost mirror those in phase 1, which has two CDUs of 200,000 b/d each. But phase 1 has one 1.4 million mt/year ethylene unit while phase 2 plans to double the capacity with two ethylene units.

With the entire phase 2 project online, ZPC expects to lift its combined petrochemicals product yield to 71% from 65% for the phase 1 refinery, according to the source.

"Petrochemical contributes most of the companies" profit with healthy demand growth while the stakeholders have feedstock demand for their textile plants too," the source said.

Zhejiang Petroleum, a joint venture between ZPC"s parent company Rongsheng Petrochemical and Zhejiang Energy Group, planned to build 700 gas stations in Zhejiang province by end-2022 as domestic retail outlets of ZPC.

Established in 2015, ZPC is a JV between textile companies Rongsheng Petrochemical, which owns 51%, Tongkun Group, at 20%, as well as chemicals company Juhua Group, also 20%. The rest 9% stake was reported to have transferred to Saudi Aramco from the Zhejiang provincial government. But there has been no update since the agreement was signed in October 2018.

Podcast: China"s petrochemical refiners are making their presence felt way beyond the country"s borders. How will this impact global supply, demand, and trade balances? Will global operating rates be reduced?

Textile giants Rongsheng and Hengli have shaken up China"s cozy, state-dominated oil market this year with the addition of close to 1mn b/d of new crude distillation capacity and vast, integrated downstream complexes. Petrochemical products, rather than conventional road fuels, are the driving force for this new breed of private sector refiner. And more are on their way.

Tom: And today we are discussing the advent of petrochemical refineries in China, refineries that have been built to produce mainly petrochemical feedstocks. Just a bit of background here, these two big new private sector firms, Rongsheng and Hengli, have each opened massive, shiny new 400,000 b/d refineries in China this year. Hengli at Changxing in Northeast Dalian and Rongsheng at Zhoushan in Zhejiang Province on the East coast. For those unfamiliar with Chinese geography, Dalian is up by China"s land border with North Korea and Zhoushan is an island across the Hangzhou Bay from Shanghai. And the opening of these two massive new refineries by chemical companies is shaking up China"s downstream market. But China is a net exporter of the core refinery products, gasoline, diesel, and jet. So, building refineries doesn"t sound like a purely commercial decision. Is it political? What"s behind it? How will it affect the makeup of China"s petrochemical product imports?

Chuck: And clearly, the driver here for Rongsheng and Hengli, who as Tom mentioned, are chemical companies, they are the world"s largest producers of purified terephthalic acid, known as PTA, which is the main precursor to make polyester, polyester for clothing and PET bottles. And each of them were importing massive amounts of paraxylene, paraxylene being the main raw material to make PTA. And paraxylene comes from the refining of oil. And really the alternate value for paraxylene or its precursors would be to blend into gasoline to increase octane. So, when looking to take a step upstream in terms of reverse or vertical integration, they"ve quickly found themselves not just becoming paraxylene producers, but in fact becoming refiners of crude to begin with, which of course, is quite complex and it involves all kinds of co-products and byproducts. And as many know, the refining of oil, the primary driver there, as Tom has mentioned, is to produce motor fuels. So, we"re reversing this where the petrochemicals become the strategic product and we look to optimize or maybe even limit the amount of motor fuels produced.

Tom: And presumably then, the creation of so much petrochemical feedstock production capacity is going to have a pretty major impact on global supply-demand and trade balances.

Chuck: And margins, of course, as well because no one wants to shut down their unit just to accommodate the new Chinese production. And what remains to be seen is global operating rates for these PX units will be reduced to maybe unsustainable levels. And as margins come down, they"ll be down for everyone, but the most efficient suppliers or producers will be the ones that survive. And in the case of Hengli and Rongsheng, low feedstock costs, if you"re driving down the cost of paraxylene, you take the benefit on the polyester side because now you have very competitive or very low-priced feedstock.

Tom: That"s a really interesting point actually. Looking at it from a refining economics point of view, if you were trying to diversify your revenue stream, for example, you probably wouldn"t want to increase your gasoline production. And gasoline margins in Europe are barely breaking even, they"re about $4 a barrel. In China, gasoline crack spreads are actually negative. So, fine, they"re self-sufficient in the paraxylene they need for weaving, but are they just... the refiners themselves, Hengli and Changxing, are they now just soaking up losses from the sales of their transport fuels? I think they may be initially, but they"re not just giving their gasoline away, obviously, these refineries were conceived as viable commercial concerns. Hengli anticipates profits, I think, of around 12 billion Yuan per year from its Changxing refinery giving a payback period on that investment of around five years. And each company, interestingly enough, has a distinct marketing strategy for their transport fuel.

Rongsheng is trying to build itself into a retail brand around Shanghai and the Zhejiang area. And Hengli is trying to muscle into the wholesale market on a national level, so it"s gonna be selling products across China. And in that respect, as we were discussing earlier, in fact, Rongsheng appears to have an advantage because where it"s located on the East Coast of China, that region is net short still of transport fuels, but Hengli in the Northeast, that"s a very competitive refining environment. It"s a latecomer to an already pretty saturated market: PetroChina, a state-owned oil giant, is a huge refiner up in Northeast China with its own oil fields, so a ready-made source of low-cost crude. And it"s also very close to the independent sector refining hub in Shandong Province, which is the largest concentration of refineries in China. So, I think there are definite challenges for them on the road fuel front, even if it sounds like they"re going to be pretty competitively placed further downstream in the paraxylene market.

Tom: Well, that"s one of the peculiarities of the Chinese market. As private sector companies, neither Rongsheng nor Hengli are allowed currently to export transport fuels. That"s a legacy concern of the Chinese government to ensure energy self-sufficiency downstream to make sure there"s adequate supply on the domestic market of those fuels. So, that is a real impediment for them. And when they ramp up production of gasoline, diesel, and jet, they are driving down domestic prices and they are essentially forcing product into the seaborne market produced by other refineries. So, in that respect, the emergence of Hengli in Northeast China on PetroChina"s doorstep has created a huge new sense of competition for PetroChina in particular. And I think certainly when you look at their recent financial data, it"s quite clear that they are struggling to adapt to the new environment in which it"s essentially export or die, because these new, massive refineries are crushing margins inside China.

Chuck: And going back specifically to the Hengli and Rongsheng projects, it"s interesting to note, again, going to an order of magnitude or perspective, Hengli is producing or has capacity to produce 4.5 million tons of paraxylene. And in phase one, Rongsheng will have capacity to produce 4 million tons. And I know those are just large numbers, but again, bear in mind that last year, global demand was 43.5 million. So, effectively, these two plants, they could account for 20% of global demand. Just these two projects themselves to give you an idea of just how massive they are and how impactful they can be. Impactful or disruptive, it remains to be seen.

Tom: A sign it doesn"t do things by halves. Although that said, one of the interesting things they have done is essentially halved their transport fuel yields. So, where in a conventional refinery, your combined output of gasoline, diesel, and jet, those core products, might be in the region of 80%, when you look at these new refineries, they"ve really cut that back down to 40% or 50%. And there are new petrochemical refineries springing up, and it"ll be very interesting to see how disruptive those are to the petrochemical market. But in the conventional refining market, they are, I think under pressure to do even more to reduce their exposure to already weakened gasoline and diesel markets. I mean, Shenghong — this new textile company who"s starting up another massive new conventional refinery designed to produce petrochemical products in 2021, I think — they"ve managed to reduce that combined yield to around 30%. They"ve reduced that from an original blueprint.

Chuck: It"s remarkable, but just a note of caution, there have been other petrochemical and refinery projects built recently in Saudi Arabia and in Malaysia, in particular, with established engineering and established chemical and refining companies. And they"ve had trouble meeting the targeted dates for startup and it"s one thing to be mechanically complete, it"s another thing to be operationally complete. But both Hengli and Rongsheng have amazed me at how fast they were able to complete these projects. And by all reports so far, they are producing very, very effectively, but it does remain to be seen why these particular projects are able to run whereas the Aramco projects in Malaysia and in Rabigh in Saudi Arabia have had much greater problems.

Tom: It sounds like in terms of their paraxylene production, they are going to be among the most competitive in the world. They have these strategies to cope with oversupplied markets and refined fuels, but there is certainly an element of political support which has enabled them to get ahead of the pack, I guess. And suddenly in China, Prime Minister Li Keqiang visited the Hengli plant shortly after it came on stream in July, and Zhejiang, the local government there is a staunch backer of Rongsheng"s project. And Zhoushan is the site of a national government initiative creating oil trading and logistics hub. Beijing wants Zhoushan to overtake Singapore as a bunkering location and it"s one of the INE crude futures exchanges, registered storage location. So, both of these locations in China do enjoy a lot of political support, and there are benefits to that which I think do allow them to whittle down the lead times for these mega projects.

So, thank you for joining us today, and it"ll be interesting to follow all of these developments because there still are so many moving parts. And you can follow this on the petroleum side with China Petroleum, the publication in which Tom edits out of London or some of our petrochemical reports. We do daily assessments on the paraxylene markets as well as monthly outlooks, which include global price forecasts. And we have databases which show supply, demand, and trade flows, etc. And then also please tune in for future episodes of the "China Connection." And we thank you for your time and attention.

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)

(Yicai Global) May 20 -- Zhejiang Petrochemical"s oil  refining project with an annual capacity of 40 million tons on Zhoushan has finished  construction and equipment installation in the first stage and will start running soon,   Ningbo, Zhejiang province-based Rongsheng Petrochemical, which is ZPC"s  controlling shareholder, announced this afternoon.

The project, on the island of Zhoushan in southeastern China"s Zhejiang province south of Shanghai at the mouth of Hangzhou Bay, has total investment of around CNY173 billion (USD25 billion). It is not only the largest petrochemical project that Chinese private firms have invested in, but its production scale is also one of the biggest worldwide. It has 22 refining and 15 chemical units, and its two stages have a similar scale and will be able to refine 40 million tons oil upon completion, the released data show.

ZPC will also be able to produce 10.4 million tons of aromatic hydrocarbon and 2.8 million tons of ethylene a year, and this enhances the firm"s petrochemical production chain.

China Merchants Energy Shipping (CMES), the energy transport unit of China Merchants Group, has signed a agreement with Rongsheng Petrochemical to form a strategic partnership.

Under the agreement, the two companies will jointly develop cooperation opportunities in the area of shipping, logistics, and financing, especially for the Rongsheng’s Zhoushan Green Petrochemical Base project, which started a trial operation recently.

Zhoushan Green Petrochemical Base project is a new integrated refinery and petrochemical project on Zhoushan Island, and it is set to become one of the world’s largest crude-to-chemicals complex.

The project will feature a crude oil terminal, separate process units for oil refining and petrochemical production, storage tanks, and transport and service installations.

Saudi Aramco today signed three Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) aimed at expanding its downstream presence in the Zhejiang province, one of the most developed regions in China. The company aims to acquire a 9% stake in Zhejiang Petrochemical’s 800,000 barrels per day integrated refinery and petrochemical complex, located in the city of Zhoushan.

The first agreement was signed with the Zhoushan government to acquire its 9% stake in the project. The second agreement was signed with Rongsheng Petrochemical, Juhua Group, and Tongkun Group, who are the other shareholders of Zhejiang Petrochemical. Saudi Aramco’s involvement in the project will come with a long-term crude supply agreement and the ability to utilize Zhejiang Petrochemical’s large crude oil storage facility to serve its customers in the Asian region.

An integral part of the project includes a third agreement with Zhejiang Energy to invest in a retail fuel network. The companies plan to build a large scale retail network over the course of the next five years in the Zhejiang province. The retail business will be integrated with the Zhejiang Petrochemical complex as an outlet for the refined products produced.

Phase I of the project will include a newly built 400,000 barrels per day refinery with a 1.4 mmtpa ethylene cracker unit, and a 5.2 mmtpa Aromatics unit. Phase II will see a 400,000 barrels per day refinery expansion, which will include deeper chemical integration than Phase I.

PVTIME– Rongsheng Petrochemical Co., Ltd., (002493.SZ) (hereinafter referred to as Rongsheng) announced that the 300,000MT EVA device was successfully put into operation on December 28, 2021, and its photovoltaic products have been successfully produced with 28% VA content.

These products were produced by the ‘40 Million MT/Year Integrated Refining and Chemical Project (Phase II)’, which invested by Zhejiang petroleum & chemical Co., Ltd., a holding subsidiary of Rongsheng. The project based in Green Petrochemical Base, Zhoushan City, China, with an annual output of 300,000MT PV products.

Furthermore, as early July this year, Rongsheng revealed in its interaction with investors that Zhejiang project (Phase II) is undergoing. The EVA device can produce all photovoltaic products, and it may make an expansion of EVA production capacity in the future.

The newly-built highly-integrated mega Chinese refinery-cum-petrochemical complexes are immensely more efficient than the 50-60 year-old clunkers that they are replacing across the globe spanning from the U.S. west coast to the Philippines, bringing a new paradigm to the oil market, they said.

Even though Chinese refineries are built primarily to cater to the domestic market, the export market is a safety valve whenever there is an imbalance in fuel or petrochemical demand, which easily amounts to 1 million b/d in an average month. Such volumes weigh heavily on inefficient, standalone sites that are increasingly exposed and consequently shuttered.

The new sites coming onstream in China typically have processing capacities of 300,000 b/d or more and are integrated with petrochemical units that allow them to swing from a so-called petrochemical to an oil-product mode as the economics dictate.

So far in Asia, Royal Dutch Shell announced the closure of its 60-year-old 110,000 b/d Tabangao refinery in the Philippines and plans to cut capacity by half at its biggest 500,000 b/d facility in Singapore. Shell said it aims to have just six integrated refineries by 2025.

BP Australia earlier said it would convert its 152,000 b/d Kwinana refinery in Western Australia into an import terminal. Ampol said Oct. 8 it is studying a similar conversion of its 109,000 b/d Lytton site, echoing a statement by Refining NZ, the sole operator in New Zealand. The Australian government last month announced plans to subsidize refiners as long as they maintain operations in Australia, days after Viva said it may shut the 120,000 b/d Geelong site.

One of the export quota recipient, Zhejiang Petrochemical Corp. (ZPC) was given 1 million mt. The company, which is majority owned by Rongsheng Petrochemical Co., is in the final stages of getting the second phase of its 800,000 b/d refinery up and running.

In the petrochemical sector, demand for polyester, derived from purified terephthalic acid (PTA), paraxylene and mixed xylene (MX), could improve as a life returns to normal, a petrochemical producer said.

Mobility curbs delayed the commissioning of new plants while supply of propylene from refinery sources was curtailed as refiners cut runs, according to Asia Light Olefins World Analysis - Propylene.

A bumper 10 million-barrel spot crude oil purchase by Rongsheng Petrochemical suggests it is keen to get the second phase of its massive 40 million mt/yr, or 800,000 b/d, refinery and chemical project at subsidiary Zhejiang Petrochemical Co. Ltd (ZPC) running in the coming months, trading sources said.

Rongsheng announced in August plans to begin trial runs at the second 400,000 b/d tranche of the project in the fourth quarter of 2020 and looks set to achieve this aim despite COVID-19-related construction delays due to social distancing restrictions earlier in the year.

Market participants said Rongsheng was absent from the spot market for a couple of months and returned this week to buy the medium-sour Middle East cargoes, which led some to believe it was restocking but added that the scale of the purchase does point to some use in the new facility.

The petrochemical units include a 1.4 million mt/year ethylene and a 4 million mt/year paraxylene plants as well as related downstream polymer and polyester units. It also has a 600,000 mt/year propane dehydrogenation (PDH) unit.

Phase II is centered around a similar 400,000 b/d CDU as the first phase, placing ZPC in conjunction with Hengli Petrochemical as operators of the largest independent refining-cum-petrochemical complexes in China. Once completed there will be two such 800,000 b/d sites in the country.

Gain greater transparency into Asia-Pacific markets for more strategic buy and sell decisions on refinery feedstocks, LPG and gasoline with the OPIS Asia Naphtha & LPG Report.

Continuing low refinery runs coupled with the autumnal turnaround season has tightened supplies from across the European barrel since September, creating backwardation in naphtha and gasoline and causing middle distillate differentials to strengthen versus distillate futures, according to OPIS and Intercontinental Exchange pricing.

Refinery runs at the world"s third largest crude oil importer are forecast to increase to 90% in November from around 80-85% in October with further hikes anticipated in December, with one source adding that it could reach 100% due to the combination of renewed diesel and strong gasoline demand.

India reduced refinery throughput in August to 16.1 million mt, or 3.82 million b/d, down a hefty 26.4% from a year ago, according to data from the Petroleum Planning & Analysis Cell (PPAC). This works out to 76% of the country"s nameplate 5.02 million b/d capacity and 73.6% of the 5.19 million b/d processed a year ago, the data showed.

There are no major refinery turnarounds planned in the fourth quarter aside from the month-long shutdown of the 400,000 b/d Vadinar facility in October.

Egypt"s Middle East Oil Refinery (MIDOR) company, located in Alexandria, has issued a tender to buy 90,000 metric tons of gasoil for October and November delivered into El Dekheila Port, according to a document seen by OPIS amid better-than-expected recovery in the region.

MIDOR delivers refined products to the national oil company, EGPC, and the local market. Its refinery has a crude distillation capacity of 100,000 b/d and is one of the newest and most sophisticated of Egypt"s nine operating refineries, according to IHS Markit data. Egypt has a total atmospheric distillation capacity of 737,000 b/d.

On Wednesday, Hanwha Total Petrochemical (HTC) bought HFRN for H1 Nov. to Daesan at a discount of $5/mt or larger to Japan prices, said sources. An HTC company source declined to comment.

Gain greater transparency into Asia-Pacific markets for more strategic buy and sell decisions on refinery feedstocks, LPG and gasoline with the OPIS Asia Naphtha & LPG Report.

The U.K.-based Grangemouth petrochemicals plant operated by Ineos will shut down at the beginning of October, according to sources with links to the plant Tuesday.

Turnarounds at the nearby 210,000-b/d Petronineos-operated refinery and the petchem plant were originally scheduled for April this year, but the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic scotched those plans.

One source told OPIS that a short period of maintenance work on a 110,000-b/d crude distillation unit at the refinery was about to end, and so many workers engaged in that project will be redeployed to work on the forthcoming petchems plant shutdown.

India, the second-largest crude oil importer in Asia, reduced refinery throughput in August to 16.1 million mt, or 3.82 million b/d, down a hefty 26.4% from a year ago, according to data from the Petroleum Planning & Analysis Cell (PPAC). This works out to 76% of the country"s nameplate 5.02 million b/d capacity and 73.6% of the 5.19 b/d processed a year ago, the data showed.

"We expect the demand recovery to continue and that would support higher refinery runs in October/November. However, from a year-on-year point of view, there is still a long a way to go to reach the 2019 level," said Premasish Das, IHS Markit research and analysis director.

IHS Markit estimates September refinery runs at 4.1 million b/d, rising to 4.4 million b/d in October/November, Das said, adding that the forecast may be slightly on the optimistic side.

Gain greater transparency into Asia-Pacific markets for more strategic buy and sell decisions on refinery feedstocks, LPG and gasoline with the OPIS Asia Naphtha & LPG Report.

Gain greater transparency into Asia-Pacific markets for more strategic buy and sell decisions on refinery feedstocks, LPG and gasoline with the OPIS Asia Naphtha & LPG Report.

Gain greater transparency into Asia-Pacific markets for more strategic buy and sell decisions on refinery feedstocks, LPG and gasoline with the OPIS Asia Naphtha & LPG Report.

Gain greater transparency into Asia-Pacific markets for more strategic buy and sell decisions on refinery feedstocks, LPG and gasoline with the OPIS Asia Naphtha & LPG Report.

Naphtha usage as petrochemical feedstock was crimped by poor aromatics margins as downstream polyester and other derivative demand started to slow down in the face of the prolonged economic downturn wreaked by COVID-19. However, consumption in China for use in olefin production remains robust, a source said.

Demand in India will increase as two massive crude units, the Indian Oil Corp. 300,000 b/d Paradip refinery and a 380,000 b/d unit at the mega Reliance Industries Jamnagar site begin operations after around a three-week maintenance.

Gain greater transparency into Asia-Pacific markets for more strategic buy and sell decisions on refinery feedstocks, LPG and gasoline with the OPIS Asia Naphtha & LPG Report.

YNCC settled at a premium of around $7/mt to Japan naphtha price, two sources said. LG Chem concluded at plus $6-$7/mt while Korea Petrochemical Industry Co. settled at around plus $3/mt, according to several sources. Formosa Petrochemical Corp. (FPCC) bought cargoes for Oct. 2020-Sept. 2021 at plus $4-$5/mt.

Asia naphtha demand as a petrochemical feedstock will continue to grow as new crackers begin operations even as below-capacity refinery utilization rates in some countries squeeze supply further, they said.

Buyers currently in 2021 CFR term discussions include Hanwha Total Petrochemical for splitter grade, or heavy full range naphtha (HFRN), and Lotte Chemical Titan for light naphtha, sources said

Refinery run rates in Asia and the Middle East are expected to improve to 74% this month and reach 82% by January 2021, from below 70% in April during the depth of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) lockdowns, said April Tan, IHS Markit associate director in Singapore.

Gain greater transparency into Asia-Pacific markets for more strategic buy and sell decisions on refinery feedstocks, LPG and gasoline with theOPIS Asia Naphtha & LPG Report.

A Royal Dutch Shell refinery in the Philippines became the first Asian casualty of the fuel demand destroying coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic as other sites in the region brace themselves for similar fallouts in the face of new virus outbreaks and poor refining margins while more sites come onstream in China.

Pilipinas Shell Petroleum Corp said on Thursday that its near 60-year-old 110,000 b/d Tabangao refinery in Batangas province was no longer economically viable and would be turned into an import terminal.

“Due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the global, regional and local economies, and the oil supply-demand imbalance in the region, it is no longer economically viable for us to run the refinery,” Pilipinas Shell President and CEO Cesar Romero said in the statement.

Refining margins in Asia are under tremendous pressure due to the sharp drop in fuel demand with the benchmark Singapore complex gross margin dropping to minus $3.78/bbl in May/June, according to an update by Refining NZ, which is studying the possibility of converting its refinery in New Zealand to an import terminal.

“This is not a surprise. We are working on a list of refineries in Asia that are vulnerable because of COVID-19 and this refinery keeps coming up in many of the criteria,”said Premasish Das, IHS Markit downstream research and analysis director, adding that there are sites in Japan, Australia, New Zealand and even in Singapore that face uncertain futures.

RIL brought forward the turnaround of a 380,000 b/d CDU at the export-oriented 705,200 b/d Jamnagar refinery to this week from the initial schedule of Oct. 15, according to sources. The works were expected to finish in three to four weeks.

U.S. refined product output capacity that has been chasing significantly weaker demand since April due to the economic fallout of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is about to lose another refinery to temporary shutdown, market sources report.

When operating at or near full capacity, the Calcasieu refinery supplies a considerable amount of heavy naphtha and low-sulfur vacuum gasoil (LSVGO) into the U.S. Gulf Coast spot market. Figures from the U.S. Energy Information Administration show the refinery as having 36,000 b/d of vacuum distillation capacity (hence the VGO output) but nothing in the way of fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) capacity or catalytic reforming capacity.

A testament to the Calcasieu refinery"s length on intermediate feedstocks is the fact that Calcasieu-quality LSVGO and Calcasieu-quality heavy naphtha were both seen on offer in the U.S. Gulf Coast spot market last week.

Other U.S. refineries shelved during the pandemic are Marathon Petroleum"s 166,000-b/d plant in Martinez, Calif., and its 28,000-b/d refinery in Gallup, N.M. (both in April). As reported by OPIS on June 16, restart of at least the Martinez refinery is not likely in 2020, according to some large unbranded wholesale customers who were privately informed by company sales executives.

Another U.S. refinery -- HollyFrontier"s 52,000-b/d refinery in Cheyenne, Wyo. -- is also soon to exit the petroleum-processing business. As previously reported, the refinery is expected to halt refining operations by Aug. 1 in order to begin the process of converting the facility to renewable diesel production by the first quarter of 2022.

Lower refinery utilization and the COVID-inspired drop in U.S. demand have also dismissed octane worries for the moment. The best means of addressing tough Tier 3 sulfur standards this year would have required running catalytic reformers at very high rates, and that might have limited output of high- octane components. But the lowest refinery runs of the 21st century have left plenty of spare capacity in refining complexes and kept octane spreads in check.

U.S. refinery utilization has averaged less than 83% of capacity for 15 weeks, including a number of plants at minimum rates or idled (Marathon Petroleum"s refineries in Martinez, Calif., and Gallup, N.M).

Flaring occurred Tuesday at the Shell-operated 404,000-b/d Pernis refinery near Rotterdam in the Netherlands, according to eyewitnesses, with market sources saying Europe"s largest plant is becoming fully operational after a turnaround.

The trader had previously suggested that some units at Pernis, including those maximising the refinery"s middle distillates production, would not be operational until the middle of July, even though other units came back online last month.

The purchases well exceed Chinese refinery runs, especially in the second quarter when the nation was in the grip of COVID-19, leading most participants to agree that a lot of the oil has gone into storage, the capacity of which many had underestimated, according to Feng.

However, shipments have picked in July as seen in recent shipping fixture reports but are still well short of typical levels due to COVID-19, which may lead to reduced refinery runs resulting in a longer period of lower imports, trading sources said.

Asian petrochemical makers plan to use more liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) in August for a second straight month as gas cracking economics improved following a jump in naphtha prices due to strong downstream and gasoline demand.

The petrochemical manufacturers had planned to crack 310,000 mt in July, according to the previous poll published on June 5. They used 306,000 mt in June.

Hanwha Total Petrochemical Corp. (HTC) bought one 22:22 lot for end-July delivery to Daesan via a tender with propane at a single-digit discount to the Far East quotes and butane at a discount of $30s/mt to the Japan naphtha quotes, according to sources.

Mitsubishi Chemical, Maruzen Petrochemical and Mitsui Chemicals are on track to restart their crackers over the next two weeks after completing scheduled maintenance works, as reported earlier.

Mitsubishi Chemical will crank-up its 539,000 mt/year plant in Kashima this week, while Maruzen Petrochemical will resume its 525,000 mt/year unit in Ichihara next week. Mitsui is also on track to complete maintenance at the 500,000 mt/year Osaka facility on July 20.

Asian naphtha markets strengthened with the CFR Japan price on Monday reaching a four-month high of $406.500/mt, according to OPIS data, supported by healthy petrochemical demand, tight supply and increased gasoline consumption following relaxations of lockdowns over the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).

Methodology: OPIS collects Asian petrochemical companies" plans for the current month and the next month, as well as actual cracking volume in the previous month. OPIS, a unit of IHS Markit, checks if any manufacturers revise their plans for the current month and if any manufacturers crack more or less than initial plans in the previous month. OPIS contacts feedstock procurement officers of each companies for the survey by phone, email or messengers in the last week of previous month or the first week of the current month. OPIS surveys 16-20 companies a month.

Gain greater transparency into Asia-Pacific markets for more strategic buy and sell decisions on refinery feedstocks, LPG and gasoline with theOPIS Asia Naphtha & LPG Report.

Supply of all naphtha grades tightened as refiners worldwide operated at below capacity to counter the loss in fuel demand stemming from coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) mobility restrictions. At the same time, resilient petrochemical demand kept Asia cracker run rates at more than 85%, widening the supply shortfall, they said.

The freeing up of tankers from earlier use as floating storage at the start of COVID-19 lockdowns, along with below-capacity refinery utilization, curtailed liquidity in oil product trades and led to the slump in freight, he added.

Growing buyer resistance to the naphtha price escalation is seen in the recent withdrawal of H1 and H2 Aug. purchase tenders by Hanwha Total Petrochemical, Yeochun NCC and LG Chem.

Gain greater transparency into Asia-Pacific markets for more strategic buy and sell decisions on refinery feedstocks, LPG and gasoline with theOPIS Asia Naphtha & LPG Report.

Prices of naphtha and gasoline rose on the back of easing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) lockdown measures that rekindled road transportation fuel demand, with naphtha buoyed by both stable intake as a petrochemical feedstock and its diversion into the gasoline pool as a blendstock, they said.

"The steps to destroy unwanted jet stream is to first blend it into diesel up to the upper limit, blend it into cracker (petrochemical) feedstock, switch to dumbbell-like crude slate...if these are not enough then a refiner may need to lower runs as a last resort," she said.

Gain greater transparency into Asia-Pacific markets for more strategic buy and sell decisions on refinery feedstocks, LPG and gasoline with theOPIS Asia Naphtha & LPG Report.

Ethane prices will be driven higher by increasing outright natural gas prices due to the loss of associated gas production and the need to drill for gas from drier fields. Demand will be flattish in 2020 before recovering through to 2025 on growing US petrochemical consumption and boosted by new export capacity to start up at the end of the year.

As crude oil prices recover, the favourability of ethane over LPG and naphtha as a petrochemical feedstock to produce ethylene will exist for US Gulf Coast crackers even with the increases in ethane prices, said Mehta. Still, there will be some periods, especially during the summer months, when LPG prices become more favourable.

Energy Transfer"s Orbit ethane export facility in the US Gulf Coast, the group"s joint venture with China"s Satellite Petrochemicals, will be in service in the fourth quarter. The export terminal will have the capacity to export 180,000 b/d alongside 800,000 bbl of refrigerated ethane storage, the group said at the conference.

Gain greater transparency into Asia-Pacific markets for more strategic buy and sell decisions on refinery feedstocks, LPG and gasoline with theOPIS Asia Naphtha & LPG Report.

CPC Corp. is seeking gasoline in a surprise move following the closure of a 50,000 b/d residue fluid catalytic cracker (RFCC) at its Taoyuan refinery in Taiwan for turnaround amid growing demand as governments relax lockdown measures to curb the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).

The tender came as CPC Corp. shut the RFCC at its 200,000 b/d Taoyuan refinery on May 7 for maintenance works that are expected to last until around Aug. 20, as reported earlier.

"We may see some demand from countries where refinery runs were slashed. They have not raised runs fast enough yet to meet demand recovery," the trader said.

Supply of all naphtha grades tightened because of lower global refinery runs due to fuel demand loss stemming from coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) mobility restrictions. At the same time, resilient petrochemical demand has kept Asia cracker run rates at more than 85% in recent months, widening the supply shortfall, they said.

"Asia was awash with arbitrage barrels in May and June because there was no gasoline blending demand. Now gasoline demand has returned, cracker demand is still there, but refinery runs are recovering at a slow pace because middle distillate margins remain weak," said a northeast Asian buyer.

For H1 August delivery, Hanwha Total Petrochemical (HTC) and GS Caltex bought HFRN at premiums of $11-$13/mt while Korea Petrochemical Industry Co. Ltd. (KPIC) paid $13-14/mt for light naphtha with minimum 70% paraffin, as reported.

LPG"s competitiveness as a cracker feedstock has increased although the gas can only replace up to 20% of naphtha, according to the latest Asian Petrochemical Feedstock Market Outlook weekly report.

Gain greater transparency into Asia-Pacific markets for more strategic buy and sell decisions on refinery feedstocks, LPG and gasoline with theOPIS Asia Naphtha & LPG Report.

Global commodities trader Gunvor is mothballing its 107,500-b/d Antwerp refinery in Belgium following the cratering of European refining margins during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, the company"s CEO Torbjorn Tornqvist has announced.

Gunvor"s Antwerp refinery has a much lower potential output than several other refineries in Europe"s key Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp refining hub, and its size is one of several factors adversely affecting its strength, IHS Markit refining and marketing consulting director Hedi Grati told OPIS.

"Gunvor"s refinery in Antwerp is smaller and less complex than its peers in the port and across the border in nearby Rotterdam. Additionally, there is less integration with marketing activities such as fuels retail, which would otherwise provide some more security of demand," said Grati.

"The continued strength of Urals crude, at a premium to dated Brent, must have seriously weighed on the refinery"s bottom line," Grati added. The refinery was designed to process medium-sulfur crude oil, such as the Urals grade.

The restart of the 300,000 b/d Petronas-Saudi Aramco joint venture Pengerang Refining and Petrochemical (PRefChem) facility after an explosion was pushed back due to manpower issues leading to the sale of several million barrels of crude oil that were in floating storage, trading sources said.

The refinery, in the southern Malaysian Johor state, was shut after a massive fire and explosion on March 15 that killed five people. The incident, the second in a year, occurred at a Diesel Hydro Treating Unit (DHT), the company said in a March 16 statement.

The refinery was saddled with issues since it began production last year. In April 2019, another massive fire and explosion almost completely destroyed an atmospheric residue desulphurizer (ARDS), crippling operations as the site was no longer able to process intended sour crudes.

Consequently, the refinery as a whole, and the RFCC in particular, was running at very low rates, market sources said. The fire-hit ARDS was due to restart in the middle of this year, Petronas said in a quarterly report.

The refinery is designed to produce 98,000 b/d of gasoline, 28,000 b/d of jet fuel, 88,000 b/d of diesel, 5,000 b/d of fuel oil and 458,000 mt/year of slurry sulfur. Its gasoline and diesel meet Euro 5 specifications.

The refinery also provides feedstock to an integrated petrochemical complex with a nameplate capacity of 3.3 million mt/year. The cracker has a capacity to produce 1.26 million mt/year of ethylene, 600,000 mt/year of propylene and 180,000 mt/year of butadiene, according to IHS Markit data.

Propane"s discount to CIF NWE naphtha deepened for July, ending at minus $46/t mid-week, from minus $8/t at the start of June, according to the data in the OPIS Europe LPG & Naphtha Report. Early-June bidding for CIF ARA propane by a petrochemical major in NW Europe had continually pitched buyside levels between $10 and $15/mt deeper when compared to propane/naphtha spreads at the time.

California refined products margins are better than they were when Marathon temporarily idled its 161,000-b/d Martinez refinery in April, but fuel demand has not improved to where a restart of the complex is likely in 2020, sources said.

Some large unbranded wholesale customers told OPIS that they have been privately informed by Martinez sales executives that a restart in 2020 appears out of the question. But the Bay Area refinery is not a candidate for permanent closure, given its complexity and the eventual return of demand for transportation fuel in a post-coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) environment.

A Marathon spokesperson declined to comment on Martinez refinery operations in the rest of 2020, emphasizing that top brass was constantly evaluating conditions with an intent to restart when "demand warrants."

In comparison, the five-year average of mid-June weekly prices for S.F. CARBOB and S.F. CARB diesel between 2015 and 2019 was $1.85/gal and $1.82/gal, respectively, according to OPIS historical spot pricing data. Even so, Northern California current market values are about 62cts/gal stronger than when the Martinez refinery was idled on April 27.

Bringing back a 161,000-b/d refinery might tighten up the crude market but could tilt gasoline back into the "sloppy" category that prevailed for the first part of 2020.

The U.S. West Coast PADD5 region represents perhaps the most disciplined refining area of the country. Before the COVID-19-inspired demand destruction, refiners were operating at about 87% of capacity, according to statistics compiled by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). Regional run cuts and the idling of Martinez pulled refinery utilization rates to just above 61% of capacity for the week ending June 5, according to EIA. A cursory glance at other regions finds the East Coast with a lower rate of 51.3%, but that"s only because the closed-for-good Philadelphia Energy Solutions refinery"s 336,000-b/d is still counted in the base capacity. PADDs 2, 3 and 4 have seen refinery runs rebound to over 75% utilization.

The Martinez refinery could be restarted in relatively short order if demand warranted, with the plant capable of returning to normal operations within two weeks, a spokesperson told OPIS.

Longer term, the refinery is viewed as a keeper, although Marathon might have to make substantial investments in the state in renewable diesel. Refinery experts who have analyzed all of California"s refineries list Valero"s Wilmington plant as the most likely candidate for eventual closure, and they are also keeping an eye on Phillips 66"s coupled plants in Rodeo and Santa Maria.

Marathon"s Martinez plant isn"t the only refinery likely to remain on the shelf for months. The refiner also idled its 26,000-b/d refinery in Gallup, N.M., and a restart there does not appear imminent.

Meanwhile, sources believe that the ex-HOVENSA plant in St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands that was originally expected to run up to 200,000 b/d of crude in early 2020 in January will not be manufacturing gasoline or diesel this summer. There is no word on when the 135,000-b/d Come-by-Chance refinery in Newfoundland will be resurrected by new owner Irving, and a deal to refurbish and restart a 335,000-b/d Curacao refinery by Klesch Group has been delayed by COVID-19. Demand concerns are also the probable rationale behind the delayed target date for the expansion of ExxonMobil"s Beaumont, Texas, refinery from 350,000 b/d to 600,000 b/d.

Gain greater transparency into Asia-Pacific markets for more strategic buy and sell decisions on refinery feedstocks, LPG and gasoline with theOPIS Asia Naphtha & LPG Report.

The 404,000 b/d Pernis refinery near Rotterdam in the Netherlands, Europe"s largest refinery, is scheduled to come back from its largest turnaround in several years by the end of this month, market sources said today.

Refinery operator Royal Dutch Shell has started offering diesel to load from Pernis before the end of the month, according to two European diesel market sources. Shell is also offering marine gasoil, known as DMA, for loading at Pernis in July, said a marine fuel market source.

The entire refinery with two 200,000-b/d CDUs went offline for a turnaround in the middle of April, and sources in the area said maintenance would last throughout May and June. The refinery is set come back online at a moment when European refining margins remain low but have started to creep up.

Northwest Europe naphtha values strengthened against the refinery complex in April and May, with support coming from higher arbitrage flows to Asia alongside burgeoning petrochemical feedstock demand, while other refined products in Europe saw demand crumple due to the confinement measures brought about by the coronavirus 2019 disease (COVID-19).

Naphtha did not experience the same demand crushing effect COVID-19 lockdown measures had on transport fuels in April and first-half May as support came from the petrochemical sector amid discounted prices to rival gas liquids feedstocks.

Paraffinic naphtha sank to discounts of minus $18/t to parity with the flat price in April before partially recovering to the minus $7.50/t to plus $2/t band in May, with more buying interest from the petrochemical sector compared to OSN due to its higher paraffin content.

Demand recovery and refinery run rates are the two uncertainties trading sources consistently raise when discussing Asian crude oil imports in the coming months and its impact on prices now that the OPEC+ group have got a handle on supply.

However, whether the OSP increase and possible reluctance among term buyers to take full contractual volumes would draw out crude oil currently in storage as part of the contango trading strategy or even flush out clean products on board vessels in place of higher refinery runs is still a big unknown, they said.

“By how much 2H 2020 imports will pull back depends on refinery runs (which in turn depends on oil demand recovery in domestic and overseas markets) and availability of storage capacity. All these factors are 2020 specific and may not be directly comparable to 2018,” said Feng Xiaonan, IHS Markit analyst in Beijing.

Chinese refinery runs in May were estimated to see more month-on-month improvement to 70% from 55 % in February, according to the IHS Markit China Refining and Marketing Short-Term Outlook report published on May 29.

Refined oil product output in France is rising as demand returns, with the Total-operated Grandpuits refinery coming back online and two ExxonMobil-operated refineries boosting runs.

The 100,000-b/d Grandpuits facility, located near Paris, was initially due back online in March after a month-long maintenance period, but the refinery remained offline due to slumping demand as France undertook its lockdown to combat the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.

ExxonMobil"s 120,000-b/d Fos refinery, based in the south of France, has joined the company"s 233,000-b/d Gravenchon plant in "adapting to the demand" for oil products in the country, where lockdowns are easing and consumption increases, according to a company spokeswoman.

The Gravenchon refinery increased runs last week as the company informed local residents that units were being brought back into operation. ExxonMobil declined to offer figures regarding exact throughput at the refineries.

Total"s 100,000-b/d Feyzin refinery is seeing more worker activity on site but remains offline, local sources said. The French oil major began a big turnaround at Feyzin on February 14, with the work scheduled to last several weeks at a cost of 80 million euros, but maintenance was stopped on March 20 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Refinery maintenance scheduled before the COVID-19 pandemic could encourage some operators to boost output, according to IHS Markit principal downstream research analyst Eleanor Budds.

The petrochemical sector in northwest Europe continued to cut its intake of LPG feedstock in May as propane values maintained significant premiums to rival feedstock naphtha, leading to a slash in LPG import flows from the U.S.

CIF ARA propane prices extended its two-month run holding a premium to CIF NWE naphtha, with propane/naphtha trading at +$53/mt at the start of May, down from a high of +$131/mt recorded on April 21, but still atypical going into the summer months when propane usually trades at a discount due to the lack of heating demand. By comparison, the propane/naphtha spread was minus $139/t in May 2019. A petrochemical producer with feed-flexible coastal facilities in the Netherlands and Spain made repeated propane cargo resale attempts last month.

Demand attrition for finished goods in the petrochemical chain due to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) gathered pace in May, with Dow Chemical among other producers announcing the idling of some downstream chemical units (see OPIS alert April 30, 2020).

Petrochemical operators relied more on local North Sea supply, with 81% of their May LPG intake from North Sea countries Norway and the U.K., while 11% came from the Russian Baltic region and 8% from the U.S. East Coast.

Looking ahead, LPG has come back into favor as a petrochemical feedstock as naphtha prices have rebounded harder on rising Brent crude oil values. The propane/naphtha spread tipped negative for the first time in two months to minus $6/t on May 26, and has since deepened to minus $24/t at last look, spurring a petrochemical producer to resurface seeking propane cargoes.

Asian petrochemical producers plan a modest increase of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG)cracking in July from the lower levels intended this month, while gas usage will grow further in August when demand for heating fuels in the northern hemisphere eases, according to a poll.

The petrochemical manufacturers had planned to crack 350,000 mt in June, according to the previous survey published on May 13. They used 321,000 mt in May, lower than initial plans of 357,000 mt.

Strong naphtha demand, as well as tight supply with lower arbitrage flows and refinery turnarounds, will support prices. CFR Japan on June 3 rose to $343.750/mt, the highest since March 6.

A petrochemical producer in Northeast Asia raised cracker runs to full in June from around 90%, given the strong market, an official at the company said.

Methodology: OPIS collects Asian petrochemical companies" plans for the current month and the next month, as well as actual cracking volume in the previous month. OPIS, a unit of IHS Markit, checks if any manufacturers revise their plans for the current month and if any manufacturers crack more or less than initial plans in the previous month. OPIS contacts feedstock procurement officers of each companies for the survey by phone, email or messengers in the last week of previous month or the first week of the current month. OPIS surveys 16-20 companies a month.

Gain greater transparency into Asia-Pacific markets for more strategic buy and sell decisions on refinery feedstocks, LPG and gasoline with theOPIS Asia Naphtha & LPG Report.

Tupras will resume production at its 230,000 b/d Izmir refinery on 1 July, which accounts for 40% of its crude oil processing capacity, the company said in a recent filing posted on the Public Disclosure Platform (KAP) website.

Production stopped temporarily at the refinery on May 5 due to falling demand for oil products amid travel restrictions to prevent the spread of COVID-19, Tupras said.

The Asia gasoline market is expected to strengthen further with its margin poised to turn positive amid tighter supply due to lower Chinese exports and reduced refinery runs just as demand is growing on the back of looser lockdown measures, analysts and traders said.

Gain greater transparency into Asia-Pacific markets for more strategic buy and sell decisions on refinery feedstocks, LPG and gasoline with theOPIS Asia Naphtha & LPG Report.

Plans by the Chinese provincial Shandong government to build a mega refining-cum-petrochemical complex is unlikely to lead to a glut of oil products due to its high integration and the probable closure of several teapot plants as part of a consolidation exercise, analysts and trading sources said.

The Yulong project has been in the making for years. Last September, details emerged for an 800,000 b/d refinery to be built in two phases with the first 400,000 b/d to be integrated with two 1.5 million mt/year ethylene plants, according to the Shandong provincial and Jilin city governments.

The Yulong project will be the most sophisticated yet in the string of mega refineries that have come onstream in the past year including the 400,000 b/d each of Hengli Petrochemical and Zhejiang Petrochemical (ZPC), according to IHS Markit.

Ten independent refineries, with a combined 560,000 b/d capacity, have so far signed up to swap their existing refining assets into equivalent equity shares in the newly proposed refinery, according to the IHS Markit report.

"Considering that the COVID-19 outbreak has already put mounting pressure on employment and local economic growth, we believe it is probable for the government to postpone refinery closures in order to maintain stability," they said in the report.

The Yulong complex is designed to convert over 60 % of a barrel of crude into petrochemical products and feedstocks through a combination of hydrocracking and intensive catalytic cracking technologies, IHS Markit said.

"If such design is carried through, China will be able to take its crude-oil-to-chemicals (COTC) achievements one big step forward from where the operating Hengli and ZPC currently stand, consolidating the country"s world leading position in the realm of refining and petrochemical integration," it said in the report.

"Consumption of gasoline and diesel rose to about 90% of levels in the previous years, while demand for jet fuel recovered to around 60%," said an official at a major refinery, asking not to be identified.

Last month, SK Energy, the nation"s largest refiner idled its 260,000 b/d No. 5 CDU and other facilities including the 57,000 b/d No.1 residue fluidized catalytic cracker (RFCC) at the 840,000 b/d Ulsan refinery for scheduled turnaround, as reported earlier.

Uncertainty continues to hang over the maintenance plans of British refinery operators, who have been juggling the demands of government, low refining margins and the practicalities of undertaking turnarounds during a pandemic.

The tricky calculations facing some U.K. refiners are best embodied by a debate swirling around the 210,000-b/d Petroineos-operated Grangemouth refinery.

The refinery was due to come offline along with the nearby Ineos-operated petchems site in April, but sources in the area said in March that all the works would be postponed amid the onset of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.

The refinery"s financial viability, an issue that has dogged Grangemouth in the past, reared its head again earlier this month, when Petroineos was widely reported by the British media to have applied for an emergency government loan of up to £500 million.

"With people following government advice to stay at home, demand for road and jet fuel has dropped significantly," the company said in a statement reported by IHS Markit, the parent company of OPIS. "As a responsible operator of Scotland"s only refinery, Petroineos is in regular discussion with the Scottish and U.K. governments on a variety of matters."

Asked whether there was concern among the workforce about what would happen to the refinery, one worker representative said: "There are discussions ongoing with the U.K. and Scottish governments. I don"t think there is a huge fear that the refinery is going to shut."

The turnaround plans of Phillips 66, the operator of the 210,000-b/d Humber refinery, which lies on the east English coast, were also nixed by the pandemic.

OPIS revealed in March that a turnaround planned at the refinery for the April-June period had been postponed until September, according to sources in the area.

However, some unit work is ongoing, the operator told OPIS this week when asked if the refinery"s fluid catalytic cracker was offline for maintenance.

"There is planned maintenance work currently underway at the Humber refinery," the company told OPIS in an e-mailed statement. "Details regarding the specific units involved and the duration of the work are considered proprietary."

Sources at Fawley said in March that the U.K. government had insisted to ExxonMobil that it must keep the refinery running "at all costs" during the COVID-19 pandemic, even as refining margins for products such as gasoline entered double-digit negative territory.

The British government has been holding regular conference calls with the refinery"s manager in order to receive updates about the plant"s status, sources at Fawley have told OPIS.

"As a critical sector, workers in the oil and gas industry have continued operations while taking the necessary precautions," a spokesman at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy told OPIS. "The government has been engaging with the UK"s oil refinery operators, as well industries across all sectors, during this period."

The maintenance plans of the U.K."s two other large refineries -- the Essar-operated 200,000-b/d Stanlow refinery in northwest England and the Valero-run 220,000-b/d Pembroke plant in Wales -- have been less affected by the pandemic, although runs at the refineries have been reduced.

A spokesman for Essar told OPIS this week that the refinery"s fluid catalytic cracker, which boosts gasoline output, came back online in the first half of April. Essar also had second-quarter work penciled in for Stanlow"s hydrofluoric acid and sulfur recover units, sources with familiar with the refinery"s work schedule say.

Last week refinery runs slumped to 56.1% of the nation"s total 3.52 million b/d capacity, the lowest on OPIS records of the Petroleum Association of Japan (PAJ) data going back to January 2014.

“The North Sea barrels that’s been floating for a while will start to clear, some of them will end up in STS (ship-to-ship) operations with the VLCCs that were booked,” said one trading source, adding that resumption of refinery runs in some European countries such as Germany will also aid in the absorption of the regional supply overhang.

Japanese refinery runs fell further last week to the lowest in more than six years even as the government lifted a state of emergency nationwide giving hope to a rebound in oil product demand.

Nayara Energy restarted a 110,000 b/d unit at Vadinar in late April after a over two-week closure, Bharat Petroleum Corp. Ltd resumed operations at its 100,000 b/d crude unit in Kochi this week following a three-week shutdown, while Mangalore Refinery & Petrochemicals Ltd also did the same after works at a 144,000 b/d unit for about a month, the report showed.

Overall oil consumption in China is forecast to contract by more than 1 million b/d in 2020 from a year ago due mainly to the drag in transport fuels while demand for petrochemical feedstocks, including naphtha and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), are expected to post modest growth, the IHS report showed.

The spike in demand growth was matched by an equally impressive rebound in refinery run rates with independents raising output sharply took take advantage of local fuel floor prices that raised margins significantly, according to the report.

Refinery runs in China are expected to increase to 69.8% of capacity in May, according to preliminary estimates from IHS Markit compared with typical rates of around 77% prior to COVID-19. Operations dropped to 55% in February before recovering to 60% and 68.8% in March and April, respectively, IHS Markit data show.

Gain greater transparency into Asia-Pacific markets for more strategic buy and sell decisions on refinery feedstocks, LPG and gasoline with theOPIS Asia Naphtha & LPG Report.

Nghi Son Refinery and Petrochemical (NSRP), for example, will not export any spot diesel cargoes in May and June, according to sources with knowledge of the matter.

China placed a lot of its crude arrivals in March and April into storage a