China’s Qilu Petrochemical Corp refinery plans throughput of 690,000 tonnes in January, close to December’s record rate, to help meet strong domestic demand, a refinery source said.

“It will be close to December’s 700,000 tonnes, the highest level the plant has operated,” said the source from east China’s Shandong province, where the refinery is located.
The source said the plant would skip gasoline and gas oil exports this month, as expected, to hold back supply for the domestic market.
China has experienced a shortage of gas oil, or diesel, in recent months, with eastern parts of the country worst hit.

The shortfall is expected to deepen in coming weeks as hundreds of millions of Chinese travel for family reunions around the Lunar New Year holiday starting on January 22.
An industry source said in November that Qilu, a unit of China’s second-largest oil firm Sinopec Corp, planned to halt gasoline exports in 2004 to meet strong domestic demand generated by a boom in car sales.
China is the world’s fastest growing major car market. New car sales were estimated to reach two million in 2003, up 67 per cent from 2002, analysts have said.

Qilu has a nameplate crude refining capacity of 10.5 million tonnes per year and supplies primarily Shandong province, which has the second-largest provincial population at about 91 million behind central Henan province.
Meanwhile, China’s largest oil refinery, Zhenhai Refining & Chemical Co Ltd , plans full refinery operations in January with a record throughput at 1.38 million tonnes to help relieve a domestic diesel shortage, a company official said.

The level would be six per cent higher than an earlier expectation of 1.3 million tonnes and seven per cent above the previous record set in December at 1.29 million tonnes, said a company investor relation official.
“It has just been officially planned to run at 1.38 million tonnes. This is because of the severe diesel shortage in Zhejiang province,” said the official.