China imported 13.52% more crude oil in October from a year earlier, data showed on Tuesday, as refiners stepped up purchases using fresh import quotas and as domestic fuel demand expanded during the Golden Week holiday.
Crude oil arrivals last month into China totaled 48.97 million metric tons, or 11.53 million barrels per day (bpd), according to the General Administration of Customs, up marginally compared with 11.13 million bpd in September.
Year-to-date imports by the world's largest oil buyer amounted to 473.22 million tons, or 11.36 million bpd, an increase of 14.4% from a year earlier.
"October imports inched up m-o-m and extended y-o-y gains, with the OPEC share rebounding," said Emma Li, a China oil markets analyst at Vortexa in Singapore.
Domestic consumption of gasoline and aviation fuel received a strong boost during the eight-day Golden Week holiday when travelers made 826 million trips within mainland China, up 71.3% from a year earlier and 4.1% higher than the pre-pandemic year of 2019.
The release of a fourth batch of crude oil import quotas, as well as healthy refining margins through the third quarter, spurred cargo arrivals.
"China has experienced a large-scale crude stock build from March to August this year, based on lower oil prices. With the rising prices, China’s crude imports pace has slowed down, implying the possibility of a stock draw in the coming months" said Lin Ye, an analyst at Rystad Energy in Beijing.
Despite the imminent arrival of the winter heating season, China's natural gas imports, comprising both liquefied natural gas (LNG) and piped gas, fell to the lowest level since February at 8.79 million tons.
China's LNG imports in October were at the lowest level since April at 5.44 million tons, tanker tracking data from Kpler indicated.
However, total year-to-date natural gas imports amounted to 96.51 million tons, up 8.8% from the corresponding period in 2022, the customs data showed.
Thanks to recovering industrial activities and overall lower gas prices versus last year, China's apparent natural gas demand grew 7% during the first nine months from a year earlier to 289 billion cubic meters, the state planner said last week.