China's crude stocks slump despite slight rise in September import rate

According to Business Recorder, China's crude oil imports in September dropped 21.5% from a year earlier, even though the daily import rate rose 1.1% from the previous month. The world's biggest oil buyer brought in 37.1 million metric tons, equal to 9.03 million barrels per day. Higher refinery runs and delayed cargo arrivals helped drive the largest monthly draw on onshore crude inventories in analysts' records.

For the first three quarters, imports totalled 357.97 million tons, or 9.57 million barrels per day, down 15.3% year on year. Vortexa put September seaborne arrivals at 7.6 million barrels per day, compared with 9.9 million a year earlier, and Iranian oil imports fell to 0.5 million barrels per day. Oilchem data showed refinery utilisation climbed to 66.36%, up 1.98 percentage points from August, while fuel exports rose sharply.

Vortexa logged a 57 million-barrel fall in onshore stocks in September, while Kpler reported 47.5 million barrels, both the largest monthly draws since their series began. Vortexa analyst Emma Li blamed Middle East shipping bottlenecks around Hormuz for delayed cargoes, and Kpler expects fourth-quarter seaborne imports in a range of 8 million to 8.5 million barrels a day. Kpler's Muyu Xu said Saudi shipments could increase substantially in October and November, though replacing Iranian supply would be difficult.