China's commercial crude oil inventories at the end of July 2015 expanded 1.05 percent from a month earlier, while its product oil stocks gained 3.16 percent month-on-month, according to the monthly data product China Petroleum Stockpile Statistics (CPSS) released on Tuesday.
The commercial crude oil inventory data excludes the stockholdings of the national Strategic Petroleum Reserves (SPR). In a breakdown, the stocks of gasoline and diesel grew 0.22 percent and 5.85 percent month on month, respectively. Meanwhile, kerosene stocks declined 1.5 percent from a month earlier. China reported 30.38 million tonnes of net crude oil imports in July, higher than 29.45 million tonnes in June.
Domestic crude oil output in July stood at 18.1 million tonnes, basically in line with that in the previous month. China's refineries processed 43.54 million tonnes of crude oil in July, slightly higher that 43.35 million tonnes in June.
The output of gasoline, diesel and kerosene in July was level with that in the previous month thanks to stable crude oil throughput. Deceleration of economic growth has obvious impacts on consumption of product oil. Gasoline stocks witnessed slight growth in July due to large-scale rainfalls, poor performance of stock market and flagging economic growth though July is prime season of gasoline consumption and domestic retail prices fell in the period.
The operation rate of infrastructure projects stayed at low level in July and diesel demand continued to be sluggish on head winds from macro economy. The start of summer vacation season brought more travels and bolstered jet fuel consumption, which led to marginal drop in kerosene stocks.
The CPSS statistics, which are released in the middle or latter part of each month through the Xinhua08 platform, serve as a reference indicator mirroring changes in China's commercial petroleum stocks. The Xinhua08 platform is an internet-based financial information and trade service platform developed by Xinhua News Agency.
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