China’s expanding refining capacity won’t lead to increased oil product exports

INTERFAX-CHINA – China’s rapidly growing refining capacity is targeted at meeting soaring domestic demand, and as such is unlikely to lead to a significant increase in oil product exports before 2012, a senior consultant with Edinburgh-based energy consultancy, Wood Mackenzie, told Interfax at the 23rd Asia Pacific Petroleum Conference held in Singapore yesterday.

With several large-scale refineries coming online in China over the next three to five years, the country will see a significant increase in refining capacity, but in the meantime, oil demand from China, mainly driven by soaring car ownership, is expected to be the driving force in the Asia-Pacific region, Satvinder Roopra, head of Asia-Pacific downstream oil at Wood Mackenzie, said.


“China’s major oil refiners are state-owned and their priority is to supply the domestic market, not meet export demand, and they need to do so even at an economic loss,” he said.

Interfax