China’s independent refineries have received their first round of crude import allocations with volumes close to their annual ceiling, a move that will allow them to better pace their imports through the year and bring more efficiency to their crude buying. First round allocation up 76.6% on year Most refiners get allocations of at least 90% of ceiling ChemChina’s allocation hits new high The Ministry of Commerce on Wednesday allocated a total 114.59 million mt (2.3 million b/d) of crude imports to 34 refiners, up 76.6% from 64.88 million mt for 21 refiners awarded in the same batch of 2017, a document available to S&P Global Platts showed. In addition to the 34 independent refineries, 10 trading companies — nine state-owned and one independent — have received quotas of around 6.73 million mt. The trading companies’ imports will be mostly sold to the state-owned oil giants Sinopec, PetroChina, CNOOC […]