China's crude imports from Saudi Arabia surged to 7.72 million mt, or about 1.89 million barrels per day (bpd) in June, shattering the record of 7.33 million mt hit in March, according to Chinese customs data.
Arrivals from Saudi Arabia jumped around 64% last month from 4.7 million mt (1.19 million bpd) in May, data from the General Administration of Customs (GAC) showed.
Such a surge was partly attributable to the startups of two private refiners - Hengli Petrochemical and Zhejiang Petrochemical - which significantly boosted crude processing capacity in the country, market sources said. Both of them have crude supply agreements with Saudi Aramco, according to the sources.
By contrast, China's Iranian crude imports sank near 60% from the same period of last year to 855,638 mt or 209,060 bpd in June as US sanctions bit.
China imported 39.58 million mt of crude in June, or 9.631 million bpd, up 15.2% year on year, but down 1.64% from May, according to GAC.
Chinese refineries' crude throughput rose by 7.7% to around 13.07 million bpd in June, smashing the record of 12.68 million bpd in April, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics.
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