China's oil processing up as plants' operations resume

China's crude processing surged to record high as the country's refineries restarted operations.

Oil plants in china processed a total of 43.92 million metric ton of crude in November, according to the Beijing-based National Bureau of Statistics. That number is 3.3 percent higher than last year. Bloomberg News reported that the refineries in the country produce about 10.73 million barrels per day, which is a 2.6 percent increase from October's figure.

Higher oil processing in the world's second largest oil consumer is in line with its record oil exports last month. This is caused by refiners that asked overseas markets to decrease their fuel stockpiles. Fuel exports increase for the fifth consecutive month into 2.22 million tons in November, which is 77 percent higher than October's exports.

Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal reported that the Chinese government announced Friday that its national oil stockpiles have doubled in the past year. It aims to take advantage of the low price global supplies and get to the level of wealthy nations in creating strategic reserves.

The National Bureau of Statistics announced that during the middle of the year, the nation's strategic reserves hit 191 million barrels, which is 26.1 million metric tons. In November 2014 that reserves was only at 91 million barrels.

In a report by China Daily, the country now has eight state oil reserve silos, which has a total storage capacity of up to 28.6 million cubic meters. The silos are located in Northeast China's Liaoning province, East China's Shandong province, East China's Zhejiang province, North China's Tianjin city, and in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region and Gansu province.

Only four silos were operational in November last year, which has a capacity of storing 16.4 million cubic meters of oil. Now eight silos are functional, capable of storing up to 26.1 million tons. The Chinese government aims to build oil reserves that would amount to a hundred days of net imports by 2020.