China has allocated a new batch of oil product export quotas that has brought the total since the start of the year to 50 million tons, S&P Global Platts reports citing documents.
At 4.71 million tons, this batch of export quotas are allocated to the state oil companies-Sinopec, CNOOC, Sinochem, and CNPC - under the processing trade route and are added to an earlier batch that amounted to 3.14 million tons and the first batch of general trade route quotas totaled 18.36 million tons.
Earlier in the month, Beijing allocated the second batch of export quotas for refiners under the general trade route, which was significantly higher than the one under the processing trade route. It stood at 23.79 million tons of oil products.
While quotas under the general trade route focused most heavily on gasoline-at 9.09 million tons-and gasoil, the quota for which was 9.175 million tons, the latest batch of export quotas under the processing trade route the largest share fell on jet fuel, at 4.62 million tons, followed by moderate amounts of gasoil and gasoline, at 80,000 tons and 10,000 tons, respectively.
Last week, Chinese government data showed refiners were processing crude oil at the rate of 12.68 million bpd as of the end of April, up 5 percent from a year ago and a record high. According to a January report by CNPC, 12.68 million bpd was to be the average processing rate in China this year.
Under the general trade route, refiners can export oil products regardless of whether they were made using domestic or imported crude. Under the processing trade route, refiners don't have to pay taxes on the exported oil products.
There will be a third batch of oil product export quotas this year but no updates have been released on whether it will be allocated.
By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com
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Irina is a writer for Oilprice.com with over a decade of experience writing on the oil and gas industry. More