Currently, the epidemic situation in Europe and the United States is still severe. Worldometers real-time statistics show that as of 7:22 on December 2, Beijing time, the cumulative number of confirmed cases in the United States exceeded 14.08 million. The relatively pessimistic economic outlook has caused oil demand in Europe and the United States to remain sluggish, and the international oil market can only be saved by demand from China and parts of Asia.
According to the latest report from the Russian Satellite News Agency on December 2, after worrying about oil sales for several months, the world’s largest oil producer finally received a large order from China and other Asian countries. Currently, the United States has 20 supertankers fully loaded with oil and sailing to China and other Asian countries.
It is reported that most of these oil tankers are super tankers that can transport 2 million barrels of crude oil. Based on this calculation, the total volume of U.S. oil exports reaches 40 million barrels (that is, 2 billion tons ). Among them, the chartering companies mainly include China’s largest buyer, Unipec, as well as companies from South Korea and Singapore. In other words, this batch of U.S. oil is mainly shipped to China.
China, which has taken the lead in economic recovery, is playing an increasingly important role in the current depressed international oil market – the global oil refining industry has begun to shift to China and other Asian regions. As early as 2019, the International Energy Agency predicted that China may surpass the United States in 2021 and become the world’s largest oil refining country.
Reports indicate that China’s private chemical giant Zhejiang Rongsheng Petrochemical is launching a batch of new refining projects with a crude oil processing capacity of up to 1.2 million barrels per day, which is equivalent to the entire United Kingdom of production capacity. There are at least three crude oil processing projects in China that are comparable to this. In other words, China’s current oil refining capacity is equivalent to at least four that of the United Kingdom.
China Petroleum Economics and Technology Research Institute predicts that my country’s comprehensive crude oil processing capacity is constantly increasing, rising from the current 17.5 million barrels per day to 2025 20 million barrels, or 1 billion tons. By then, China is likely to replace the United States and occupy a dominant position in the global oil refining industry. </p
