Domestic crude oil imports rose sharply

China Investment Advisory Network News On August 24, the price of US crude oil fell below the level of US$73 per barrel in Asian electronic trading, and has fallen for five consecutive trading days. The U.S. Energy Information Association has said to the oil market that countries such as China and India will have stronger demand growth, which will help the U.S. domestic oil stocks decline from high levels and boost oil prices.

However, the drop in international oil prices was after China published crude oil import data. In July, China imported 19 million tons of crude oil. From the data, it is estimated that the total domestic crude oil imports in the first 7 months have soared by 24.21%, reaching 139.6 million tons. At the same time, imports of 2.78 million tons of refined oil in July were higher than the 2.54 million tons in the previous month. The oil consumption in the emerging markets, especially the Chinese market, which was viewed by the market as an international oil price last year, has had a limited support to international oil prices this year.

Analysts pointed out that this is due to the fact that domestic crude oil demand is slowing down. On the other hand, international crude oil is more sensitive to the macro economy, and economic uncertainty has impaired the momentum of rising crude oil.

Zhuo Chuang Information Oil analyst Lu Bin said: “In the first 7 months, the domestic refinery operating rate is relatively high, and the basic driving force for refining capacity is the main reason for the higher crude oil imports in the first half of the year.” However, he pointed out that in fact, In July, oil imports have dropped, making it a turning point in the year.

China’s imports of crude oil in July fell by 15% from the previous month, and dropped significantly from 22.27 million tons in June to 19 million tons, which was also lower than the 19.6 million tons imported in the same period of last year. Lu Bin pointed out: "In July, refineries began to stop production and maintenance, and this partial production cut will continue into August, so the phased low of imports will appear in mid-August."

On August 23, the “China Xinhua 08 System” data released by China Petroleum in July showed that at the end of July, China’s crude oil inventories (excluding reserve stocks) were 29.2 million tons, an increase of 400,000 tons from the end of June and an increase of 1.3% from the previous month. Rising stocks are indicating that demand is slowing down.

In addition, Lu Bin believes that current oil prices are more sensitive to the macro economy than to demand.

Li Zhoulei, a mid-term analyst in Shanghai, pointed out: "Actually, without Chinese demand support, international oil prices will not fluctuate between 70 and 80 US dollars. Now that China's economic growth has slowed down, it has been determined and further economic restructuring is still under way. There is also no sign of easing, and external forecasts indicate that China's economic growth will continue to slow in the third and fourth quarters. This eliminates the market's intention to stimulate crude oil prices by boosting demand in China."