Chinese refiners’ crude throughput in April slumped 10.5% year on year to a two-year low of 12.66 million b/d as COVID-19 lockdowns reduced oil demand, National Bureau of Statistics data showed.

The April throughput fell 8.6% from 13.85 million b/d in March, and was below the January-February average of 14.04 million b/d.

Meanwhile the 320,000 b/d private refining complex Shenghong Petrochemical in eastern Jiangsu province has started up. Parent company Jiangsu Eastern Shenghong Co. Ltd. said in a filing May 16 that “the relevant units are ready to take in feedstocks and start up, and the crude distillation unit has been started up successfully.”

PetroChina’s 20.5 million mt/year flagship refinery Dalian Petrochemical in the northeastern Liaoning province exported its first MTBE cargo in May, the company said May 17. The 3,500 mt cargo loaded around May 10 and was an attempt at optimizing profitability under low run rates, the company said. Sinochem’s Quanzhou Petrochemical in the southern Fujian province also exported its first MTBE cargo in the month.

Japan’s refinery run rates fell to 77.7% over May 8-14, from 82.8% the previous week, as the average crude throughput declined 6.1% week on week to 2.69 million b/d, data from the Petroleum Association of Japan showed.

Separately, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and the US President Joe Biden agreed May 23 to explore “an initiative” to help reduce Asian countries’ dependency on Russian energy. “Japan and the US will jointly explore in detail about how the countries will be able to support reducing Asia’s dependency on Russian energy,” a Japanese government source told S&P Global Commodity Insights. The agreement was reached during a summit meeting in Tokyo on May 23, when the two leaders condemned Russia’s actions against Ukraine and reaffirmed their support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.

Near-term maintenance New and revised entries Japan

** Japan’s ENEOS plans to restart the sole 145,000 b/d crude distillation unit at its Sendai refinery in Northeast Japan early June. The company shut the CDU May 9 after finding that sulfur had leaked from the piping of the tank in the sulfur recovery unit at the refinery May 8.

** Japan’s Taiyo Oil shut its 106,000 b/d No.1 crude distillation unit and its 32,000 b/d RFCC at its sole Kikuma refinery at Shikoku in western Japan May 20. This is a large-scale planned maintenance which is done every four years, and the company also plans to shut the 32,000 b/d No.2 CDU at the Kikuma refinery May 21. Taiyo Oil will restart the No.1 and No.2 CDUs early-August, and RFCC on around Aug.10.

** Japan’s Cosmo Oil shut the 102,000 b/d No. 2 crude distillation unit at its Chiba refinery in Tokyo Bay May 18 for about two weeks for scheduled maintenance.

** Japan’s ENEOS shut the sole 35,100 b/d condensate splitter at its Kashima refinery on the east coast May 9 until the end of July for scheduled maintenance. ENEOS also has the sole 168,000 b/d crude distillation unit at its Kashima refinery shut for a turnaround from May 10 until mid-July.

** Sinopec’s Yangtze Petrochemical is undergoing maintenance over March 15-May 28.

** PetroChina’s Karamay Petrochemical will shut for maintenance from late May to early July.

** PetroChina’s Qingyang Petrochemical will shut for maintenance from late May to mid-July.

** PetroChina’s Yumen Petrochemical will shut for maintenance from June to mid-July.

** PetroChina’s Hohhot Petrochemical will shut for maintenance from mid-July to mid-September.

** Sinopec’s Qilu Petrochemical in eastern Shandong province has kept its crude run rate unchanged despite shutting two secondary units after an explosion on April 24, as the throughput had been at a minimal level, a company source said. “The crude throughput has already been low and difficult to cut further,” a company source said.

** China’s Wepec cut its crude throughput twice in April after an explosion at its 2.2 million mt/year residue desulfurization unit around the middle of the month. The unit will likely remain shut until end-June, when an overall turnaround will be carried out.

** ChemChina has shut for maintenance its Huaxing Petrochemical. Works started on March 15.

** Sinopec Hainan plans to completely shut for nearly two months of scheduled maintenance March 15-May 10, and there will no oil products exports in April. The Hainan refinery plans to process 370,000 mt of crude oil in March, which would be equivalent to about 47% of its nameplate processing capacity, down from 102% in February.

** PetroChina’s Liaohe Petrochemical will shut for maintenance over April-June. Japan

** Japan’s ENEOS shut its 77,000 b/d No. 3 crude distillation unit at its Kawasaki refinery in Tokyo bay May 11 until mid-July for scheduled maintenance. The company also plans to shut its 170,000 b/d No. 2 CDU at the Kawasaki refinery from end-May to end-July for turnaround.

** TotalEnergies and ENEOS will jointly conduct a feasibility study to assess production of sustainable aviation fuel at ENEOS Negishi refinery in Yokohama city, Japan, the two companies said April 14. The proposed unit, with 300,000 mt/yr of SAF capacity, would process waste or residue sources from used cooking oil and animal fat. The two companies are considering establishing a new joint venture to produce SAF. Negishi, which is due to decommission a CDU and affiliated secondary units later this year, is located in the “largest aviation fuel demand area in Japan,” the statement said.

ENEOS will decommission the 120,000 b/d No. 1 CDU at its 270,000 b/d Negishi refinery in Tokyo Bay in October 2022. It will also decommission secondary units attached to the No. 1 CDU, including a vacuum distillation unit and fluid catalytic cracker. ENEOS will also decommission a 270,000 mt/year lubricant output unit at the Negishi refinery.

** Japan’s largest refiner ENEOS will decommission the sole 127,500 b/d crude distillation unit at its Wakayama refinery in western Japan in October 2023.

** China’s Sinopec Hainan Petrochemical’s refinery in southern China plans to bring on stream two new refining units, a 2.6 million-mt/year reformer and a 2.6-million mt/year hydrocracking unit, on July 30, a source with the refinery said April 17. The two new units are part of the Hainan complex’s ethylene and refining expansion project, which also includes the addition of a 1 million-mt/year steam cracker, a 400,000-mt/year pyrolysis gasoline hydrogenation unit, a 250,000-mt/year aromatics extraction unit, a 110,000-mt/year butadiene extraction unit, an 800,000-mt/year ethylene glycol unit, a 200,000-mt/year low-density polyethylene unit, a 300,000-mt/year high-density polyethylene unit and a 400,000-mt/year polypropylene unit. The construction of these units started December 28, 2018, S&P Global Commodity Insights reported earlier. The Hainan refinery’s ethylene and refining expansion project no longer includes an earlier planned 5 million-mt/year crude distillation unit, according to the refinery source.

** Sinopec plans to add a petrochemical plant to its Fujian refining complex as part of its phase two expansion plans, according to a company source. “An ethylene plant will likely be added,” said the source, without giving more details as the plans are still in early stage. The adding of the new chemical plant, will likely help lift the overall run rates at the refinery, sources said. On March. 8, Saudi Aramco and Sinopec said they would study possible capacity expansion at the Fujian refinery. The two companies will undertake a feasibility study looking into “optimization and expansion of capacity”, Saudi Aramco said in a statement.

** Chinese Sinopec’s refinery Zhenhai Refining and Chemical has a 27 million mt/year refining capacity and a 2.2 million mt/year ethylene plant, after its phase 1 expansion project of 4 million mt/year crude distillation unit and a 1.2 million mt/year ethylene unit was delivered end-June. The company aims to grow its refining capacity to 60 million mt/year and 7 million mt/year of ethylene by 2030.

** PetroChina’s Guangxi Petrochemical in southern Guangxi province planned to start construction at its upgrading projects at the end of 2021, with the works set to take 36 months. The projects include upgrading the existing refining units as well as setting up new petrochemical facilities, which will turn the refinery into a refining and petrochemical complex. The project will focus on upgrading two existing units: the 2.2 million mt/year wax oil hydrocracker and the 2.4 million mt/year gasoil hydrogenation refining unit. For the petrochemicals part, around 11 main units will be constructed, which include a 1.2 million mt/year ethylene cracker.

** Sinopec’s Changling Petrochemical in central Hunan province plans to start construction for its newly approved 1 million mt/year reformer.

** Japan’s Idemitsu Kosan plans to start work on raising the residue cracking capacity at its 45,000 b/d FCC at Chiba.

** Axens said its Paramax technology has been selected by state-owned China National Offshore Oil Corp. for the petrochemical expansion at the plant. The project aims at increasing the high-purity aromatics production capacity to 3 million mt/year. The new aromatics complex will produce 1.5 million mt/year of paraxylene in a single train.

** Construction of a new 1 million mt/year coker at Chinese independent refinery Haiyou Petrochemical, in eastern Shandong, has been put on hold.

** Sinopec’s Jinling Petrochemical refinery in eastern China will build a new 600,000 mt/year VDU.

Launches New and revised entries

** China’s private refining complex Shenghong Petrochemical has started up recently, its parent company Jiangsu Eastern Shenghong Co. Ltd. said in a letter filed to the Shenzhen Stock Exchange May 16. “The relevant units are ready to take in feedstocks and start up, and the crude distillation unit has been started up successfully,” it said. On-spec oil products, including gasoline, gasoil, jet fuel and wax oil, have been produced during the start-up. Located in the coastal city of Lianyungang in Jiangsu province, the complex had some core facilities delivered June 30, 2021, including the CDU, sulfur recovery units, naphtha hydrocracker and its crude tanks. But the startup at the refinery has been postponed several times from end-2021 till early-2022, due mainly to the slow construction progress.

** PetroChina has started constructing a low sulfur bunker fuel oil project with 2.6 million mt/year production capacity at its upcoming Guangdong Petrochemical.

PetroChina targets to commission Guangdong Petrochemical by end-2022. The Guangdong plant is PetroChina’s latest greenfield integrated refinery in southern China Jieyang city, featured with a 2.6 million mt/year aromatics unit and a 1.2 million mt/year steam cracker.

** Saudi Aramco said it has “taken the final investment decision” to participate in the development of a major refinery and petrochemical complex in China which is expected to be operational in 2024. The complex will be developed by Huajin Aramco Petrochemical Company (HAPCO), a joint venture between Aramco, North Huajin Chemical Industries Group Corporation and Panjin Xincheng Industrial Group. The decision is subject to finalization of transaction documentation, regulatory approvals and closing conditions. The project represents an opportunity for Aramco to supply up to 210,000 b/d of crude feedstock for the complex. The complex involves a 300,000 b/d refinery, 1.5 million mt/year ethylene-based steam cracker and a 1.3 million mt/year PX unit.

** Honeywell said China’s Shandong Yulong Petrochemical will use “advanced platforming and aromatics technologies” from Honeywell UOP at its integrated petrochemical complex. The complex will include a UOP naphtha Unionfining unit, CCR Platforming technology to convert naphtha into high-octane gasoline and aromatics, Isomar isomerization technology. When completed Yulong plans to produce 3 million mt/year of mixed aromatics. Shandong’s independent greenfield refining complex, Yulong Petrochemical announced the start of construction work at Yulong Island in Yantai city at the end of October 2020. Construction was expected to be completed in 24 months. The complex has been set up with the aim of consolidating the outdated capacities in Shandong province. A total of 10 independent refineries, with a total capacity of 27.5 million mt/year, will be mothballed over the next three years.

Jinshi Petrochemical, Yuhuang Petrochemical and Zhonghai Fine Chemical, Yuhuang Petrochemical and Zhonghai Fine Chemical will be dismantled, while Jinshi Asphalt has already finished dismantling.

** China’s coal chemical producer Xuyang Group has announced plans to build a greenfield 15 million mt/year refining and petrochemical complex in Tangshang in central Hebei province. Source: Platts