• 3 minutes e-car sales collapse
  • 6 minutes America Is Exceptional in Its Political Divide
  • 11 minutes Perovskites, a ‘dirt cheap’ alternative to silicon, just got a lot more efficient
  • 3 mins GREEN NEW DEAL = BLIZZARD OF LIES
  • 46 mins How Far Have We Really Gotten With Alternative Energy
  • 3 hours If hydrogen is the answer, you're asking the wrong question
  • 4 days Oil Stocks, Market Direction, Bitcoin, Minerals, Gold, Silver - Technical Trading <--- Chris Vermeulen & Gareth Soloway weigh in
  • 5 days The European Union is exceptional in its political divide. Examples are apparent in Hungary, Slovakia, Sweden, Netherlands, Belarus, Ireland, etc.
  • 16 hours Biden's $2 trillion Plan for Insfrastructure and Jobs
  • 4 days "What’s In Store For Europe In 2023?" By the CIA (aka RFE/RL as a ruse to deceive readers)
Biden’s SPR Gamble Sparks Debate Over U.S. Energy Security

Biden’s SPR Gamble Sparks Debate Over U.S. Energy Security

The Biden Administration has significantly…

China Holds The Key To 2024 Global Oil Demand Growth

China Holds The Key To 2024 Global Oil Demand Growth

Despite an increase in China’s…

BP Tries To Reverse Big Oil’s Fortunes in Brazil

BP Tries To Reverse Big Oil’s Fortunes in Brazil

Despite lackluster results from other…

Irina Slav

Irina Slav

Irina is a writer for Oilprice.com with over a decade of experience writing on the oil and gas industry.

More Info

Premium Content

Chinese Crude Inventories Fall For First Time In 12 Months

The crude oils stockpiles of China fell for the first time in 12 months on the back of a drop in imports to the lowest in a year and robust processing rates at local refineries, S&P Platts reports, citing its latest calculations that are based on what official data is available from Beijing.

The stockpiles fell by 27.41 million barrels in October from September, S&P Platts said, with refineries processing 11.94 million barrels of crude daily, up 7.4 percent on the year. Imports during the reported month, on the other hand, averaged just 7.34 million bpd. As a result, inventories at the end of October stood at 11.06 million bpd. This, S&P Platts noted, was a 4.5-percent increase on the year, however.

Earlier this week, data analysis provider Orbital Insight said that China has started to build its crude oil inventories after two months of declines,. According to the company’s data, the first nine days of November saw an inventory increase of 37 million barrels, after a 120-million-barrel draw in September and October. 

The company uses a combination of satellite imagery and machine learning to calculate the levels of oil inventories by measuring the shadows cast by the floating roofs of the storage tanks. As the level of oil in the tanks changes, the roofs either sink or rise, which is reflected in the length of the shadows they cast. Related: New Battery Design Could Crush Tesla

China does not release official data on its crude oil inventories, which is a great source of anxiety for traders, what with the country being currently the top importer of the commodity. It began building a strategic oil reserve about ten years ago, and last year Orbital Insight estimated that the amount stored in the reserve could be as high as 600 million barrels – and that was in May 2016.

Earlier this year there was worry that the capacity of China’s oil reserve is almost full and that if it sharply cut its imports, the oil market will descend into chaos. This hasn’t happened yet, but there is a sense of general uneasiness when it comes to China’s capacity to manipulate the oil market.

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:


Download The Free Oilprice App Today

Back to homepage





Leave a comment

Leave a comment




EXXON Mobil -0.35
Open57.81 Trading Vol.6.96M Previous Vol.241.7B
BUY 57.15
Sell 57.00
Oilprice - The No. 1 Source for Oil & Energy News