China’s daily crude oil throughput slid 2% in March over a year earlier to the lowest since last October, as refiners trimmed run rates following a surge in oil prices and tepid domestic fuel consumption amid tight COVID-19 lockdowns.

Refining volume last month was 58.59 million tonnes, equivalent to 13.8 million barrels per day (bpd), data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed on Monday.

That compares with 14.08 million bpd in March 2021, and 13.98 million bpd in the January-February period this year.

Global crude oil benchmarks soared to nearly $140 a barrel in early March over fears of supply disruption following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, hurting refining margins. Russia calls its actions in Ukraine a “special operation”.

First quarter throughput fell 1.5% year-on-year to 171.44 million tonnes, the data showed.

The NBS data also showed a robust 3.9% year-on-year increase in crude oil production to 17.71 million tonnes last month, with output in the first quarter up 4.4%.

Natural gas production rose 6.3 % in March over the same year-earlier level to 19.7 billion cubic meters (bcm) and output for the year to date gained 6.6 %.
Source: Reuters (Reporting by Chen Aizhu and Muyu Xu; Editing by Christopher Cushing)