China Halts Fuel Exports to Ensure Domestic Supply
April 21st, 2011Some context is necessary on this story.
China is a huge net oil importer. This is from the U.S. Department of Energy:
China’s net oil imports reached about 4.3 million bbl/d in 2009, making it the second-largest net oil importer in the world behind the United States and for the first time surpassing Japan’s imports.
Conversely, China, “Only exports limited amounts of gasoline and high-sulfur diesel to Vietnam and Indonesia.”
In other words, the geopolitical foreshadowing of this is far more significant than any immediate shortages that may result.
Via: Bloomberg:
China Petrochemical Corp., Asia’s biggest oil refiner, halted fuel exports to ensure domestic supply as high crude costs and retail price caps cause private refiners to cut back on production.
Sinopec Group, as the company is known, “stopped exporting to other regions apart from sustaining the basic resource needs of Hong Kong and Macau,” it said in its online newsletter today. The Beijing-based company will run its refineries at full capacity and cut petrochemical production to boost output of gasoline and diesel for domestic use, it said.
