Singapore Utilization Pattern
Source: EIA, IEA, BP
| SThe Asian oil product market can be broken
into four types of countries: |
||
| – OECD countries; Japan has declining demand
and refinery closures. Korea has low demand growth. |
||
| – High growth countries such as China and
India, which have historically developed domestic refining to serve their
needs and raised protective tariffs, |
||
| – Rest of Asia/Pacific with modest demand
growth. |
||
| – The major export refinery center of Singapore
(shown in this chart), |
||
| SAsia has also been a net product importer and
a major market for the export refineries in the Middle East. |
||
| SThe Asian financial collapse in 1998 resulted
in demand and refinery utilization falling in Singapore, which is somewhat of
a bell weather for the Asian refinery market.
Last year and this year, utilization has again grown, and is
approaching 1998 levels. |
||
| SChina, where growth has been most dramatic in
2004, has reported crude runs of over 6 MMB/D in recent months. Utilization must be very high. The latest source available to us reported
a Chinese refining capacity of 5.2 to 5.4 MMB/D, which means reported
capacity is likely to be lower than actual. |
||