04-06-08 China's refinery utilization rate has hit a new low of 76.32 % since August 2007.
In mid-May, Sinopec's Jinling Petrochemical entered a maintenance period, cutting the refining crude run by 7 mm tons and pushing the utilization ratio in East China down 9.11 percentage points to 79.11 %, according to a survey released by information provider C1.

The utilization in northeast China also plunged to a low of 64.99 % due to the maintenance of the 7 mm-tpy capacity in Jingling Petrochemical and the 14.5 mm-tpy capacity in Dalian Petrochemical and Jinzhou Petrochemical that would not resume operation until the end of May.
The utilization in South China and Northwest China fell by 4-5 percentage points, respectively, to 82.86 % and 88.48 %.

The figure for North China remained flat at 87.37 %.
It is anticipated that China's refining utilization will increase in June with the end of the overhaul season.