Demand for imported fuel oil as feedstock at teapot refineries in East China’s Shandong province remains weak after the week-long Lunar New Year holiday, with the market now watching out for the release of additional crude import quotas, sources said Thursday, February 26. “With the government [likely to] allocate more crude quotas to teapot refineries, demand for imported fuel oil as feedstock will probably continue to be squeezed,” said a Shandong-based trader. Early last week, the National Development and Reform Commission released a circular outlining rules stating that qualifying refiners that want to apply for crude import quotas must permanently shutter small primary processing units. In the case of teapot refineries in Shandong, around 15 refiners have crude distillation units under 2 million mt/year (40,000 b/d) in size, while one refiner has a CDU larger than 2 million mt/year in capacity. These refiners would […]