Asia Viewpoint: by Ma Dongwei

Low sulfur bunker fuel oil production in China for the period January to February increased 34.1% from the same period last year to 2.22 mil mt, accounting for about 74.7% of consumption.

Production at Sinopec accounted for 49.8% of total production for January to February. Compared to the same period last year, its market share fell by about 13 percentage points. On the other hand, PetroChina market share exceeded 38%, up about 8 percentage points from the same period last year. Low sulfur bunker fuel oil production at Zhejiang Petrochemical recovered in February but since its first batch of export quota for 2022 was only 100,000mt, large production and export increases were curbed.

Further, low sulfur bunker fuel oil prices had been rising since late February and some refineries were keen to increase production. Actual production was expected to exceed planned volumes. Even though production at Sinopec and PetroChina in February was lower than January due to the Lunar New Year, this was compensated for by production at China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) and at independent refineries so that total production in February rose slightly from January.