Zhang Tong, a vice president of PetroChina International said that Chinese refiners actually possess the capacity to be self-dependent in the low-sulfur fuel oil (LSFO), or the 0.5%-sulfur fuel that meets International Maritime Organization (IMO) rules effective starting on January 1, 2020.
The country’s refiners have the production capacity of 18.1 million tons of LSFO this year and the country has been struggling to cut its dependence on imports of bunker fuel. China also has an ambitious plan to create its own marine fuel hub to supply northern Asia.
To support that goal, around 20 refineries, mostly under state-run Sinopec Corp, PetroChina, CNOOC and Sinochem, installed equipment to produce the IMO-compliant fuel.
Previously, China imported almost all of its high-sulfur fuel oil (HSFO) from Singapore and Korea.
In 2021, the country will be able to produce 22.6 million tonnes of LSFO, then up to 29.6 million tonnes in 2022.
