【英语财经】中国经济放缓加剧亚洲炼油产能过剩 China slowdown to fuel Asia refining glut

China’s slowing demand for oil products, especially diesel, is expected to lead to a flood of refined product exports to Asia this year even as crude imports grow, forecasts have shown.

The increased refining runs, plus purchases to build crude reserves, helped lift Chinese crude oil imports 8.8 per cent to a record 336m tonnes in 2015, according to official customs data.

But the rising imports mask a weakening domestic market, as a slowing economy reduces demand for cheap coal. That in turn cuts into the consumption of diesel by long-haul trucks that clogged highways when the economy was booming.

China National Petroleum Corp, the Chinese state-owned oil group, forecast on Tuesday that net exports of oil products would rise almost a third in the coming year, on the back of a 5.3 per cent jump in oil refinery throughput.

CNPC expects China’s 2016 oil demand to rise 4.3 per cent to 11.32m barrels per day — well below total refinery capacity, which CNPC forecast would reach 14.4m barrels a day this year.

Customs statistics released on Tuesday showed that Saudi Arabia maintained its position as China’s top supplier of crude oil for 2015 but lost out to Russia during four months of that year. Russian shipments of crude to China hit a record 4.81m tonnes in December, as smaller independent refiners used new quotas to place orders.

“Rather than being driven by domestic product oil demand — which we expect to weaken in 2016 — we expect the growth to be driven by teapot refineries and SPR [strategic petroleum reserve] stockpiling,” wrote Ivan Szpakowski, analyst for Citi Research in Hong Kong. He forecast China’s net crude oil imports would rise 5.6 per cent year on year in 2016 as independent refineries increased their runs.

Those independent companies — known as “teapot” refiners — also enjoy new quotas to export fuel and could drive the product exports expected to flow out of China in coming months.

Exports help offset the thin domestic margins for refiners, which are struggling with poor profits in spite of the slide in crude prices. Export sales “will certainly help, but overcapacity is so much margins will remain low”, said Lin Boqiang, dean of the China Institute for Studies in Energy Policy at Xiamen University.

The projected rise in exports follows a 75 per cent jump in diesel exports and 16 per cent rise in petrol and jet fuel shipments in 2015, as oil refiners raised processing runs to a record 10.48m barrels a day last year, government statistics showed.

The slump in the demand for coal and other truck freight pushed China’s diesel consumption down 3.7 per cent in 2015, according to the National Development and Reform Commission, China’s economic planning agency. This year, the International Energy Agency forecasts diesel demand will at best stay flat.

预测显示，中国成品油（尤其是柴油）需求放缓将促使中国今年将大量成品油出口至亚洲其他地区——尽管该国的原油进口仍在增长。

中国海关总署官方数据显示，炼油产量的增加再加上为建立原油储备而进行的采购，使得2015年中国原油进口量增长了8.8%，至创纪录的3.36亿吨。

但不断增加的进口难掩国内市场的日益疲软，经济放缓减少了对廉价煤炭的需求，这进而又导致长途货车柴油消耗量减少。在经济景气的时候，长途货车经常将高速公路堵得水泄不通。

中国国有石油集团——中国石油天然气集团公司(CNPC)周二预测，2016年成品油净出口量将增长近三分之一，原油加工量将增加5.3%。

该集团预计2016年中国石油需求将增长4.3%，至每日1132万桶，比该集团预测的今年的总炼油能力要低不少，后者为每日1440万桶。

周二公布的海关统计数据显示，2015年全年，沙特阿拉伯保住了中国最大原油供应国的地位，但其中有4个月输给了俄罗斯。由于中小型独立炼油商使用新配额订购，去年12月，俄罗斯对华原油出口达到创纪录的481万吨。

花旗研究(Citi Research)驻香港分析师伊万?什帕科夫斯基(Ivan Szpakowski)写道：“我们预计，增长将由‘茶壶’炼油商和囤积战略石油储备驱动，而非由国内成品油需求驱动。2016年国内成品油需求预计将减弱。”他预测，随着独立炼油商提升产量，2016年中国原油净进口将同比增长5.6%。

这些被称为“茶壶”炼油商的独立企业也享有出口成品油的新配额，它们可能将在未来数月推动中国成品油出口量增长。

出口有助于补偿炼油商微薄的国内利润率，虽然原油价格大幅下跌，但盈利状况不佳依然令它们感到头疼。厦门大学中国能源经济研究中心(China Institute for Studies in Energy Policy at Xiamen University)主任林伯强说，出口“肯定会有所帮助，但鉴于产能过剩如此严重，利润率仍将保持在较低水平”。

政府统计数据显示，随着去年炼油商将加工量提升至创纪录的每日1048万桶，2015年中国柴油出口跃升了75%，汽油和航空燃油出口增长了16%。

中国国家发展和改革委员会的数据显示，煤炭以及其他需要卡车运输的物资的需求大幅下降，使得2015年中国柴油消耗量下降了3.7%。国际能源署(IEA)预测，今年的柴油需求最多也就是与去年持平。

译者/陈隆祥