China's refinery throughput rose 4.3% year on year to 43.54 million mt or an average 10.30 million b/d in July, preliminary data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed Wednesday.
The July rate was down slightly from 10.59 million b/d in June.
Over the first seven months of the year, total refinery runs were up 4.7% year on year at 301.29 million mt or an average 10.42 million b/d, the data showed.
This was a faster pace of growth than for the same period of 2014, when refinery runs were up 4% from January-July 2013, suggesting oil demand growth is continuing to improve.
A Platts survey in mid-July showed that some of the largest stated-owned refiners in China planned to run at an average of 80% of nameplate capacity in July, up one percentage point from around 79% in July 2014.
July throughput was down three percentage points from 83% in June, according to the survey.
The survey covered 15 Sinopec, 12 PetroChina and one China National Offshore Oil Corp. refinery with a combined processing capacity of 330.2 million mt/year (66.3 million b/d).
In the upstream segment, China's crude oil production in July edged up 4.2% year on year to 18.1 million mt, with year-to-date output increasing 2.4% to 124.13 million mt, according to the NBS data.
Natural gas production rose 3.2% year on year to 10.1 Bcm in July, while January-July gas output rose 2.6% year on year to 73.1 Bcm, the data showed.
Starting July, Platts is discontinuing publication of a preliminary apparent oil demand number for China and will instead publish a final apparent oil demand number in the fourth week of the month under a revised methodology. China does not release official oil demand data.
Platts calculates apparent oil demand by adding refinery throughput, as reported by the NBS, to net oil product imports, as reported by the General Administration of Customs.
Taking into account recent changes in China's oil product consumption pattern, Platts has revised its methodology to capture net imports of LPG and petroleum bitumen blend.
The preliminary apparent oil demand number, which was based on preliminary data released by the GAC, did not take into account LPG and petroleum bitumen blend.
Final detailed GAC data, which is typically released in the third week of the month, includes a breakdown of imports by product.
From July, Platts will calculate apparent oil demand by adding refinery throughput, as reported by the NBS, to the sum of net import volumes of the following products: butane, propane, naphtha, gasoline, gasoil, jet fuel/kerosene, fuel oil and petroleum bitumen blend.
All other stories related to China's monthly oil data will continue to be published as normal.
