China's Gasoline Exports Soar to Second Highest on New Quotas

(Bloomberg) -- China’s outbound gasoline shipments soared to the second highest on record in January as refiners exhausted fresh export quotas with surging supplies from plants being upgraded to produce higher standard fuel.

• Gasoline shipments rose 52 percent from a year earlier to 409,419 barrels a day in January, according to Bloomberg calculations based on data from the General Administration of Customs.

Key Insights

• Gasoline exports rose as refiners took advantage of the higher export quotas issued at the start of the year, and as trade picked up ahead of a lull in the Lunar New Year holidays in February when industrial activity slows, according to Sophie Shi, Beijing-based analyst at IHS Markit.
• Shipments also rose as refiners raised runs to produce gasoline and diesel that met government-enforced China VI specifications, the country’s highest fuel standard. That left more supplies available for export.
• Oil blenders were squeezed out of the market as new fuel standards pushed out off-spec products, leaving room for refiners to raise runs.

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• Rising gasoline shipments from China may further weaken Singapore benchmark gasoline cracks, according to IHS’s Shi
• China’s diesel exports rose 43 percent from a year earlier to 442,787 barrels a day in January, according to Bloomberg calculations based on today’s data

To contact Bloomberg News staff for this story: Jing Yang in Shanghai at jyang251@bloomberg.net;Sarah Chen in Beijing at schen514@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Pratish Narayanan at pnarayanan9@bloomberg.net, ;Shamim Adam at sadam2@bloomberg.net, John McCluskey

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With assistance from Bloomberg