BEIJING: China's exports of clean marine fuels in 2021 rose 24% from a year ago as Chinese refiners expanded production capacity amid Beijing's ambition to create a regional bunkering hub.
Exports of the very low-sulphur fuel oil (VLSFO), which has a maximum sulphur content of 0.5% to comply with emission rules set by the International Maritime Organization (IMO), reached 19.19 million tonnes, data from the General Administration of Customs showed on Thursday.
That compares to 15.47 million tonnes in 2020 when China started to comply with the IMO emission rules.
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For December alone, China sold 1.3 million tonnes of the clean marine fuel, down from 1.75 million tonnes in November and was lower than 2.47 million tonnes in the same period in 2020.
Analysts from China-based consultancy JLC estimated that China's bonded VLSFO output reached 11.08 million tonnes in 2021, up more than 42% from a year ago.
The production boom has helped narrow the price spread between clean marine fuel supplied in China's Zhoushan and in Singapore, to an average of $17.83 per tonne in 2021 from $23.86 in 2020.
Earlier this month, Beijing granted 6.5 million tonnes of quotas for exporting low-sulphur fuel oil, up 30% from the 5 million tonnes released in the first batch of 2021, which would facilitate Chinese refiners to further ramp up output.
PetroChina last week said it will adjust fuel production from its underconstructed 400,000 barrels-per-day refinery in Jieyang to produce 2.6 million tonnes of clean marine fuel each year.
Chinese customs data on Thursday also showed that fuel oil imports reached 950,317 tonnes in December, with imports into bonded storage, which includes both high-sulphur and low-sulphur materials, were 425,983 tonnes.
The table shows China's fuel oil imports and exports in metric tonnes. The exports section largely captures the VLSFO bunkering sales along its coast.
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