China Gas Stations Ration Gas Oil
SINGAPORE, NOV 17: Retail petrol stations in bustling Eastern China have started to ration the supply of gas oil as refineries struggle to keep up with demand, China-based industry sources said on Monday.
The rationing started in early November and is expected to be in place until the end of the year, oil officials said.
The financial hub of Shanghai and the provinces of Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Fujian, with a combined population of some 170 million, are affected, they said.
The rationing has mostly been applied in stations on busy traffic routes.
"We are seeing an increasing supply/demand imbalance. Refineries are having difficulty pumping oil fast enough to meet demand, while stocks remain very thin," said a sales executive with China’s largest refiner, Sinopec Corp.
The sources said that some petrol stations are restricting customers, mostly truck drivers, to a maximum of 100 litres (26 gallons) of gas oil per visit, while other stations are limiting purchases to a maximum of 150 yuan worth of fuel.
PetroChina, which has a smaller presence in the east of China compared with Sinopec, has also implemented rationing at some of its stations, although PetroChina sources expected supply tightness to ease by late November.
Retail gas oil prices were 2.87-2.97 yuan per litre, around the government-set ceiling, with prices varying in different provinces.
The rationing has, so far, applied to gas oil but not gasoline, a product also experiencing a boom in demand because of the rapid increase in cars on China’s roads, they said.
financialexpress.com |
