Independent refiners in the Chinese province of Shandong are seen to cut throughput in August as their margins narrowed sharply, an industry survey showed. At least six of them said that they would shut their crude distillation units for maintenance this month. These refiners have a total refining capacity of around 16.9 million tons/year.
These maintenance are expected to lower Shandong independent refiners’ crude runs to below 70% this month. This would mark a second straight monthly fall in their runs after falling from a new high of 79% in June to 72.7% in July. Crude oil consumption by 45 Shandong independent refineries fell by 2.9% from June to 10.8 million tons (2.65 million bpd) in July.
