The signs of added incremental oil demand from China are rising, despite the current COVID wave in the country weighing.
Via Reuters, citing two unnamed sources and the sighting of relevant documents from the Ministry of Commerce:
- China issued a second batch of 2023 crude oil import quotas, raising the total for this year by 20% compared to the same time last year.
- 44 companies, mostly independent refiners, were given 111.82 million tonnes in import quotas in this round
More detail at that link.
Also, on the first day of the 40-day Spring Festival around 34.7m trips within the country were made. The number comes via China's Ministry of Transport. That’s up over 40% above comparable days in 2022 (still down from pre-pandemic 2019 though). Circa 2.1bn trips are expected over the whole of the 40-day period.
