Kuwait’s crude oil exports to China surged 50.2 percent in October from a year earlier to 1.28 million tonnes, equivalent to around 302,000 barrels per day (bpd), latest official data by the Chinese government shows.
Kuwait provided 6.1 percent of China’s total crude oil imports, compared with 5.1 percent in the same month of last year, according to the General Administration of Customs.
According to KUNA, Kuwait’s news agency, the Northern Gulf nation’s exports in the first 10 months of 2011 totaled 7.96 million tons (192,000 bpd), down 4.6 percent from the same period last year.
China’s overall imports of crude oil in October rose 26.9 percent year-on-year to 4.92 million bpd.
China is the world’s second-largest oil consumer. Saudi Arabia remained China’s top supplier with its shipments expanding 17.5 percent from a year earlier to 1.08 million bpd, followed by Iran with 597,000 bpd, up 46.0 percent. Angola became third with imports from the country increasing 24.6 percent to 513,000 bpd.
Kuwait and China have recently held a groundbreaking ceremony for a US$9 billion refinery and petrochemical complex in the southern Chinese city of Zhanjiang, with completion scheduled for late 2014.
Under the 50-50 joint venture between state-run Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC) and China’s top refiner Sinopec, a 300,000 barrel-per-day refinery, a 1 million-ton-a-year ethylene plant and related utilities will be built in a petrochemical industrial park on Donghai Island of Zhanjiang in Guangdong Province.
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