According to Fu Xiangsheng, Vice President of the China Petroleum and Chemical Industry Association, China’s oil refining capacity increased to 920 million tonnes per year, 18.4 million barrels per day (bpd), making it the world’s largest in 2022.
According to the International Energy Agency’s most recent oil market report, this compares to the United States’ refining capacity of 17.6 million bpd as of December 2022, though China’s production of fuel products lagged behind the United States due to low utilisation rates.
The recent wave of refinery expansions in China has been led by state-run PetroChina and large private firms such as Zhejiang Rongsheng group and Jiangsu Shenghong Petrochemical, primarily to fill a supply gap in petrochemicals rather than transportation fuels.
China’s total refined products output last year was less than 700 million tonnes (5.1 billion barrels), at an average plant utilisation rate of around 70%, the association said, compared with more than 800 million tonnes in the United States, where average utilisation exceeded 90%.
According to the association, China has 32 refineries with at least 200,000 bpd capacity each, citing the recent opening of a new facility built by PetroChina in Jieyang, Guangdong province, as an example of the country’s expanding capacity.
