China’s independent refineries — actively looking for fuel oil to feed their distillation units — are struggling to secure adequate feedstock barrels for the coming months due to tight regional supplies and high prices, market and industry sources told S&P Global Platts. Receive daily email alerts, subscriber notes & personalize your experience. Register Now Straight-run fuel oil was used by refiners to produce oil products, such as Russian M100, Indonesian lower sulfur wax residual, despite the barrels attracting Yuan 1,218/mt of consumption tax until the consumption-tax-free bitumen blend became popular in 2014 and the refineries gained access to more competitive imported crudes in 2015. However, Beijing introduced consumption tax on imported bitumen blend, cargoes of blended heavy crudes, at the same rate as fuel oil from June 12, leading to independent refineries’ imported crude feedstock to be largely restricted by their crude import quota. To ensure sufficient feedstock, independent […]