One of the little mysteries this year in Asian oil markets has been the drop in China’s diesel exports. Customs data show that China exported 1.303 million tonnes of diesel in the first five months of the year, a drop of 24 percent over the same period in 2014. This equates to about 64,700 barrels per day (bpd), which is a substantial drop on the 82,000 bpd China exported over the whole of 2014. It also means that Chinese refiners have come nowhere close to using their export quotas for diesel in the first half of 2015, even if the June data does show a substantial ramping up of diesel exports. Refiners are able to export as much fuel as they receive government quotas for, and the diesel allowance was 2.62 million tonnes for the first half of 2015, according to an April 27 report from pricing […]