China Leads Global Refining Boom

China will lead global refinery capacity expansion and investments with 3.12 million barrels per day additional refining capacity and $67.3 billion capital expenditure through 2022, data and analytics company GlobalData said in a new report.
Total refining capacity in the world is expected to grow by 15.1% between 2018 and 2022, with global crude distillation units (CDU) capacity expected to hit 117 million bpd by 2022.
Asia will lead the pack with the highest planned and announced CDU capacity of 5.4 million bpd in 2022, followed by Africa and the Middle East with 3.2 million bpd and 2.7 million bpd, respectively. 
In capital expenditure, Asia will again be the leader with expected capex for new refineries of $194.9 billion, followed by Africa and the Middle East, with $126.6 billion and $87.1 billion, respectively, GlobalData has estimated.
Among individual countries, China is the leader, with ten new-build refineries expected to come on line by 2022, followed by Nigeria and Kuwait. The top ten also includes Iraq, Iran, Turkey, Brunei, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Saudi Arabia.
“China’s ambitious refinery capacity expansion program continues fuelled by the country’s industrial growth, and growing demand from the transportation sector. The capacity expansion program is powering China’s crude imports, and will transform the country to become a strong contender for exports of petroleum products globally,” Sumit Kumar Chaudhuri, Oil & Gas Analyst at GlobalData, said.
Last month, Chinese refiners processed a record daily amount of crude oil. At a calculated 12.49 million bpd, the September run rate of Chinese refineries was more than 600,000 bpd higher than the August figure.