OREANDA-NEWS. September 12, 2011. Leading Chinese refineries will raise their crude oil throughput in September to the highest level this year, after PetroChina restarted a major crude unit in its largest Dalian refinery.

The 12 plants, which account for nearly a third of China's capacity and mostly lie in coastal regions, plan to process 2.94 million barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil this month, up 5.8 percent from August.

The increase comes after two months of consecutive draws of fuel inventories by leading Chinese oil firms in July and August.

The September throughput volume, representing about 90 percent of refining capacity of these plants, would be roughly the same as the amount they processed a year earlier, the poll showed.

PetroChina's Dalian refinery will lift September crude runs by about 40 percent from August as the plant in northeastern Liaoning province was restarting a 200,000-bpd crude unit after suspending production since July 16 following a fire.

Dalian had planned to reopen the facility in mid-August but it was delayed to late last month due to slow repairs.

Several other plants in the poll have also planned higher crude runs this month, because leading oil firms hoped to rev up operations in these key plants to offset some production losses in refineries elsewhere due to intensive maintenance.

PetroChina has shut down its 200,000-bpd Dushanzi refinery in Xinjiang region for a major overhaul since Aug. 9, and its Lanzhou refinery in neighbouring Gansu province will raise September crude runs by 10 percent from August.

Sinopec , Asia's largest oil refiner, has shut down its 200,000-bpd Luoyang refinery from Sept. 1 and will close its 100,000-bpd Jiujiang refinery from Sept. 20 for repairs.

Sinopec, saying it was optimistic about the refining sector for the second half of the year, plans to process 114 million tonnes of crude oil in the second-half, 5 percent higher than the first-half crude run of 108.53 million tonnes.