Beijing: China's June crude throughput fell to its lowest level since the pandemic, official data showed on Wednesday, as the Iran war tightened supply and high prices curbed demand in China.
Refinery throughput fell 17.7% from a year earlier to 51.24 million metric tons, or about 12.47 million barrels per day, data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed.
June throughput was the lowest since March 2020, during the Covid pandemic, and was comparable to levels seen in 2018.
Throughput in the first half of the year dropped 4.9% from a year ago to 343.87 million tons, or 13.87 million bpd, according to the data.
The utilisation rate of China's crude distillation units stood at 57.72% in June, down 3.28 percentage points month on month and down 13.09 percentage points year on year, according to Chinese consultancy Oilchem.
The low run rate was a result of weak domestic demand and refined oil product export restrictions, according to Vortexa analyst Emma Li.
China's June domestic crude oil production fell 0.5% year on year to 18.12 million tons, according to official data.
In the first six months, oil output was 109.43 million tons, up 0.9% from a year earlier.
Natural gas production rose 1.1% year on year in June to 21.4 billion cubic meters (bcm). Output for the year to date was 133.0 bcm, up 1.6%.
