中國的大型煉油廠窒息了其他亞洲石油加工企業

Recently Yahoo News on-line reported the following:

China’s Mega-Refineries Throttling Other Asia Oil Processors

Saket Sundria and Sharon Cho

Bloomberg Tue., March 30, 2021, 10:35 p.m.

(Bloomberg) -- The rise of China’s mega-refineries was always going to make life tougher for their competitors across Asia. But the fallout from Covid-19 is hastening the impact and accelerating consolidation across the region.

A frenzy of refinery building in China is set to make the nation the world’s largest crude processor this year. At the same time, a drive to de-carbonize Asia’s biggest economy means demand for fuels like diesel and gasoline will decline, potentially leading to more exports from the new facilities.

That’s putting pressure on the traditionally more export-focused plants in South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan that are trying to cope with depressed demand due to the pandemic and the longer-term transition away from fossil fuels. Refineries in places like Australia and the Philippines that lack the size and sophistication to make them competitive are closing altogether.

 “China is indeed set to dominate new refining additions and product exports are likely to increase” and will compete quite aggressively with output from other Asian refiners, said Michal Meidan, director of the China Energy Programme at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies. Much will depend on how quickly Beijing liberalizes trade and prices including domestic export quotas, she said.

China’s refining capacity has nearly tripled since the turn of the millennium and the International Energy Agency forecasts it will overtake the U.S. this year. Crude processing will climb to 1 billion tons a year, or 20 million barrels per day, by 2025 from 17.5 million barrels at the end of 2020, according to China National Petroleum Corp.’s Economics & Technology Research Institute.

Sinopec started operations at its 10-million-ton a year Zhongke plant last June. That was followed in November by the first phase of private processor Zhejiang Petrochemical and Chemical Co.’s enormous Zhoushan facility near Ningbo, which has a capacity of 20 million tons that’s set to double when the final stage is finished. Another 36 million tons of capacity will be added late this year when CNPC and Shenghong Group open plants.

 Beijing currently regulates how much fuel its refiners can export, but they’ve still been able to flood Asia with product this year amid weak domestic demand due to a virus-impacted Lunar New Year travel season. Diesel shipments were around 1.9 million tons in the first quarter, including provisional data for March, or 36% higher than last year, according to energy intelligence firm Vortexa. Gasoline exports are likely to be up around 25%, it said.

Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines are the top destinations for these Chinese cargoes, followed by Hong Kong and Australia, according to Serena Huang, lead market analyst at Vortexa. Some of the gasoline and diesel cargoes that were sent to Singapore and Malaysia in February and March are likely to be re-exported to other Southeast Asian countries, she said.

 hat’s weighing on plants in those countries and also cutting into export markets for merchant refiners in South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan that are dependent on overseas demand. SK Innovation Co., Korea’s biggest refiner, was operating at only 60% to 70% of capacity in February, while the nation’s other three processors were at higher levels, according to traders who asked not to be identified as the information is private. Taiwan’s Formosa Petrochemical Corp. is running its plants at about 60%, they said.

These refineries are unlikely to increase activity significantly before profitability picks up. Complex margins in Singapore, a proxy for the region, were -45 cents a barrel on Tuesday, near the lowest in more than a decade.

Other plants around Asia are closing down permanently or being down-sized. Royal Dutch Shell Plc wound up its Philippines refinery last year and announced in late 2020 that it would slash oil-processing capacity at its Pulau Bukom complex in Singapore over the next three years. There’s been a wave of refinery closures in Australia despite Canberra’s efforts to keep them afloat. Japan’s ENEOS Holdings Inc. is also planning to reduce operations.

There will likely be at least another 200,000 barrels a day of refining capacity shut in Asia within the next 12 months, according to FGE. “Some less sophisticated, old and highly margin-sensitive refineries will be pushed into a corner,” said Sri Paravaikkarasu, Asia head of oil at the industry consultant.

Outside of China and India, Asian refinery run rates are unlikely to make a full recovery from the virus until the end of the year, she said.

 “Export-oriented refiners in South Korea and Singapore are struggling to ramp-up considerably,” Paravaikkarasu said. “The weakness in refining margins and increasing exports from China is keeping a tight lid on the recovery.”

Translation

（彭博社）- 中國大型煉油廠的興起總是使在亞洲的競爭者的生活更加艱難。但是，Covid-19的影響正在加速影響, 並促進地區的整合。

今年中國瘋狂地建設煉油廠, 將使中國成為全球最大的原油加工國。同時，亞洲最大經濟體的減碳舉措意味著對柴油和汽油等燃料的需求將下降，這有可能導致其新設施增加出口。

這給韓國，新加坡和台灣的傳統上以出口為重點的煉油廠帶來了壓力，這些工廠正試圖應對由於病毒大流行和從化石燃料轉向的長期過渡而導致的需求下降。像澳大利亞和菲律賓這樣的缺乏規模, 和老練技術以具競爭力的地方的煉油廠, 開始關閉。

牛津能源研究所中國能源計劃主任Michal Meidan表示：“中國確實將會主導新的精煉添加，產品出口可能會增加”，並將與其他亞洲煉油廠的產出進行激烈競爭。她說，這在很大程度上取決於北京放寬貿易和價格的速度，包括國內出口配額。

 自千禧年以來，中國的煉油能力幾乎翻了三倍，國際能源署（International Energy Agency）預測，其煉油能力將今於年超過美國。根據中國石油經濟技術研究院的數據，到2025年，原油加工量將從2020年底的1750萬桶增加到每年10億噸，即每天2000萬桶。

中石化去年6月在其年產1000萬噸的中科工廠開始運營。隨後，私有加工商浙江石油化工股份有限公司在寧波附近的大型舟山工廠的第一階段於11月啟動，該工廠的產能為2000萬噸，到最後階段完成時將翻一番。今年下半年，中國石油集團和盛宏集團將啓動工廠，屆時將再增加3600萬噸的產能。

北京目前正在規範其煉油廠可以出口的燃料量，但由於受病毒影響的農曆新年旅行季節，國內需求疲軟，因此今年他們仍然能夠向亞洲出口產品。根據能源情報公司Vortexa的數據，包括3月份的臨時數據在內，第一季度的柴油出貨量約為190萬噸，比去年同期增長了36％。該公司稱，汽油出口可能增長25％左右。

Vortexa首席市場分析師Serena Huang認為，新加坡，馬來西亞和菲律賓是這些中國貨的主要目的地，其次是香港和澳大利亞。她說，在二月和三月送往新加坡和馬來西亞的一些汽油和柴油貨物很可能會再出口到其他東南亞國家。

這給那些國家的煉油廠帶來了壓力，也導致韓國，新加坡和台灣的依賴海外需求的精煉廠商人減少出口市場。一些以隱私為由要求不透露身份的貿易商稱，韓國最大的煉油企業SK Innovation Co.在2月份的產能僅佔產能的60％至70％，而韓國其他三個加工企業的產能則處於較高水平。他們說，台灣的台塑石化公司的工廠運作佔約60％的產能。

這些煉油廠在獲利水平提高之前, 不太可能顯著地增加工廠運作。作為該地區的代表的新加坡，綜合利潤率週二為每桶-45美分，接近十多年來的最低水平。

亞洲各地的其他工廠正在永久性關閉或縮小規模。荷蘭皇家殼牌公司 (Royal Dutch Shell Plc) 去年關閉了其在菲律賓的煉油廠，並於2020年末宣布，將在未來三年內削減其新加坡Pulau Bukom工廠的石油加工能力。儘管堪培拉一直在努力使煉油廠保持運轉，但澳大利亞仍存在一輪煉油廠關閉的浪潮。日本的ENEOS Holdings Inc.也計劃減少運營。

據FGE稱，未來12個月內，亞洲每天還將關閉至少20萬桶的煉油能力。該行業顧問公司亞洲石油主管Sri Paravaikkarasu表示： “一些不那麼先進，破舊, 對利潤率有較高敏感度的煉油廠將陷入困境。

她說，在中國和印度以外，亞洲的煉油廠開工率不可能在年底之前完全從病毒影响中恢復過來。

Paravaikkarasu說： “韓國和新加坡的出口型煉油廠正在努力大幅提高產量” 。 “煉油利潤的疲軟和來自中國的出口增加，使經濟復甦步履維艱。”

              So, the oil production ability of China is gigantic. While oil refinery could be a sunset industry as green energy demand is growing, China is still relying on oil for benefits.