Increasing China's crude oil stocks

China's end-May commercial crude oil stocks rose 0.2% from a month before, according to Xinhua News. It was the third months consecutive increase.

In May, China's crude oil imports surged by 10.8% from a month ago to 6.02 million barrels per day, while month-on-month growth of crude oil processing was only 0.4%.

Since crude oil supply (net imports plus domestic production) exceeded throughput by 1.04 million bpd in May, increase of inventory was the natural result.

However, the increase rate of crude oil stocks was lower than 4.4% recorded in April when supply had exceeded demand by 520,000 bpd.

Necessary oil for strategic petroleum reserves into the total 80 million barrels of newly constructed sites seemed to limit the rise of commercial crude oil inventories.

On the other hand, even though a small amount of increase in crude oil stocks in May, it suggests that China's crude oil demand in the period was lower than expected. Crude oil inventories in the previous same month had recorded decrease over the past couple of years.