China National Offshore Oil Company (CNOOC) has exported a 35,000-tonne cargo of diesel meeting Australian specifications for the fuel, the first shipment of its kind, a statement by the state assets regulator showed on Wednesday. The cargo left CNOOC’s Huizhou refinery, in southern Guangdong province, on June 17 in a move “to seize the international high-end market of refined oil products”, according to the statement. The cargo meeting Australian specifications is the latest in a flood of Chinese exports to hit Asian markets. Australia requires its diesel to be of high quality, containing sulphur levels lower than that accepted by many other countries. China’s diesel exports rose more than four-fold in May from a year earlier to a record 1.48 million tonnes, customs data showed, reflecting a slowdown in China’s heavy industry which typically uses diesel and continuing growth in throughput at independent refineries. This slowdown has prompted Chinese […]