Chinese refineries processed 50.31 million tons of crude oil in August, the lowest since December 2017, calculations by Reuters based on data from the National Statistics Bureau showed. On a year-on-year basis, however, the amount was 5.6 percent higher. Over the period January-August 2018, refineries’ throughput totaled 400.41 million tons, which was 8.7 percent higher than in the comparable period in 2017. Refinery throughputs in the world’s second-largest consumer of oil were earlier this year affected by a tax regime overhaul that squeezed the profit margins of the so-called teapots—the independent refiners that have spearheaded China’s oil consumption increase in the last three years. Yet run rates are beginning to recover, the latest data suggests. Earlier this month, S&P Global Platts reported that teapot refiners raised run rates to 59 percent of capacity in August, up from 52.5 percent in July, the lowest in 19 months, resulting from maintenance […]