CHINA DATA: Q2 crude throughput falls on year as GDP growth slows to 4.7%

China's crude throughput extended its year-on-year decline in June as its gross domestic product growth slowed to 4.7% in the second quarter, National Bureau of Statistics data released July 15 showed.

China processed 14.25 million b/d (58.32 million mt) of crude in June, falling 3.7% year on year and edging down 0.4% from May on a barrel-per-day basis to the lowest since the 14.21 million b/d seen in December 2023, NBS data showed.

The year-on-year decline of throughput started in April at 3.3% and in May, the decrease was 1.8%.

Despite the lower GDP growth in Q2 from the 5.3% seen in Q1, the economy remains in a long-term growing trend, a spokesman with NBS said during a press conference on July 15, attributing the slowdown to the extreme weather in April-June, coupled with weak domestic demand.

As a result, China's crude throughput slipped 0.9% year on year in the first half of 2024, averaging at 14.5 million b/d, while the GDP expanded 5% during the same period, NBS data showed.

The NBS releases data in metric tons, which S&P Global Commodity Insights converts to barrels using a conversion factor of 7.33.

Upstream, China's crude production rose 3.4% year on year to 4.39 million b/d in June, the second highest level in history, NBS data showed. The historic high was 4.46 million b/d seen in June 2015.

With the oil giants' efforts, China's crude output grew 1.3% year on year to 4.31 million b/d in the first six months of 2024.

China's crude throughput, output (million mt)

Source: National Bureau of Statistics