China's Rongsheng says Saudi crude supply to return to normal in October
Saudi crude oil supplies for China’s privately-run Zhejiang Petrochemical Corp will return to normal in October after a slight disruption last month following the attacks on Saudi Aramco’s facilities, two company officials said.
“There was an adjustment in September but operations are back to normal in October,” Meng Fanqiu who heads Rongsheng International Trading Co in Singapore told Reuters. The trading unit procures crude for the refinery.
In September, the company swapped 1 million barrels of Arab Light crude for Arab Heavy and experienced a delay of 2-3 days when loading oil onto one of its supertankers, a second official who declined to be named said.
However, in October, Saudi Aramco has met Rongsheng’s request in terms of volume, crude grades and the loading dates, the officials said.
Drones and missiles hit Saudi Arabia’s oil facilities on Sept. 14 and reduced output at the world’s top exporter by half. The head of Saudi Aramco’s trading arm said on Monday the company had restored full oil production and capacity to the levels they were before the attacks.
Zhejiang Petrochemical, 51% owned by Rongsheng Holdings, operates a 400,000 barrels per day refinery, built on an island off the archipelago city of Zhoushan in east China. The refinery is integrated with a petrochemical complex led by a 1.2 million-tonne per year ethylene facility.
The company has a contract for up to 170,000 bpd of Saudi crude with Saudi Aramco.
Reporting by Florence Tan; editing by David Evans
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