Angola became the largest supplier of crude oil to China's independent refinery

Angola surpassed Brazil and Russia in July to become the largest supplier of crude oil to China's independent refineries, with imports of 1.84 million tons, according to a monthly S&P survey on Monday, August 5.

Angolan imports grew by 18.8% and 89.8% year-on-year in the same month. Last month, nine independent refineries imported nine crude oils from Angola: Cabinda, Mondo, Saturno (the top three imports from Angola in July), Sangos, Dussafu, Mostarda, Dalia, Kissanje and Pulutonio. Among them, Mostarda first entered Shandong, importing 132,000 tons from Jincheng Petrochemical Company. Mostarda is a new type of crude oil from Angola. Its API is 28.2 and its sulfur content is about 1.08%. Meanwhile, imports from Saudi Arabia last month were about 1.08 million tons, up from zero in July 2018. With the production of Hengli Petrochemical (Dalian) Refinery and Zhejiang Petrochemical, oil imports from Saudi Arabia, Oman, Iraq and other Middle East countries are likely to continue to grow. Petroleum imports from Malaysia ranked fifth, about 791,000 tons, down 11.9% from last month. Most of the crude oil imported from Malaysia is mixed grade. ChemChina and Hongrun Petrochemical import Nemina and other mixed grade respectively. The total imports from the top five countries accounted for 62.4% of the total imports in that month.

The Prussian Energy Consulting Board covers crude oil imports from 38 quota refineries and other non-quota refineries. These refineries mainly import crude oil through the ports of Shandong Province, in addition to importing crude oil from Tianjin, Zhoushan and Dalian. As of early July, these refineries had obtained a total quota of 1233.2 million tons in 2019, accounting for 84% of the total quota of independent refineries, including two batches of supplementary quotas. Only goods unloaded in that month (including those arrived in previous months) are counted as imports in that month.

Despite the decline in total crude oil from Russia, ESPOblend still produced a higher output in July, with 1.3 million tons of 13 batches of crude oil coming from ESPOblend, but it fell 41.3% that month.

According to refinery sources, these original refineries were processed by independent refineries last month, mainly because of relatively high oil production and stronger demand. The 13 batches of ESPO crude oil were imported by six independent refineries, with the largest buyers Lijin Petrochemical and Hualian Petrochemical importing three batches each. Arabian Medium Crude ranked second, at around 810,000 tons, all purchased by Hengli Petrochemical, with oil prices rising by 7.3% that month. Basrah's light crude oil imports increased 149.6% to 674,000 tons this month, while Oman's crude oil imports increased 84.7% to 759,000 tons. In July, Tianhong Chemical imported 42,000 tons of ANS crude oil from the United States from Guangyang Port, Korea. This is not the first time the refinery has imported American crude oil. In June, the company received three shipments of about 141,000 tons of American ANS crude oil, after two shipments of 35,000 tons of American Eagle Ford crude oil arrived in May. Including Dongjiakou Port, Qingdao's original imports fell 1.6% in July from a year earlier to 4.37 million tons, accounting for 42% of the total imports. With Hengli's increasing imports of crude oil in recent months, the proportion of crude oil imported through Qingdao has declined from 50% earlier this year. This situation is likely to continue, and Zhejiang is expected to import more frequently in the coming months.

Shandong port imports increased by 1118% to 1.17 million tons. Rizhao, Longkou, Laizhou, Dongying and other ports import ring ratio declined. Dalian Changxing Island Port ranked third with imports of 1.48 million tons, an increase of 8.5% over the same period last year.