China continues to liberalize crude imports.

摘要

The country's commerce ministry announced on July 23 that it will permit more independent Chinese refiners that meet certain capacity, financial, logistical, and personnel requirements (one CDU with a capacity of at least 2.0MM mt/y 40.2K b/d, available credit line of $1.0B certified by commercial banks, 300K mt 2.2MM bbl of crude storage capacity, and at least five employees with 5+ years of international trading experience) to apply for licenses to direcdy import crude, eliminating the step requiring these teapots to import crude via state trading companies. Commenting on the policy change Liu Aiying, head of an industry association based in Shandong that lobbies for independent refineries, remarked "This is a policy that we've been looking forward to. This allows local oil refiners to apply for import licenses, in addition to the import quotas they are being approved to win."