OREANDA-NEWS. January 28, 2015. China's refinery throughput in December rose 6.3% year on year to 44.58 million mt, or an average 10.54 million b/d, preliminary data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed.

This is a record high volume and surpasses the previous record of 10.52 million b/d witnessed in February.

It is also 2.1% higher than in November last year.

China's overall refinery runs during 2014 rose 5.3% year on year to 502.77 million mt, or 10.1 million b/d, the data also showed.

This growth rate is the fastest since 2011 and outpaces the 3.1% expansion in 2013.

Refinery throughput picked up significantly during the end of last year, when it exceeded 10 million b/d for four consecutive months starting in September.

Average refinery throughput in Q4 rose 6% year on year to 10.38 million b/d, increasing from an average 9.92 million b/d in the third quarter of the year.

Platts estimates that China's state-owned companies added roughly 640,000 b/d of new refining capacity last year, bringing total capacity in the country to 15.5 million b/d.

China's crude imports in December hit a record high 7.18 million b/d, rising 13.4% year on year, data from the General Administration of Customs showed.

Overall crude imports last year were up 9.5% to 6.19 million b/d.

Platts will publish data on China's December apparent oil demand later this week.

Meanwhile, in the domestic upstream sector, China's crude production last month rose 2.1% year on year to 18.32 million mt, or an average 4.33 million b/d.

This is also the highest monthly volume since Platts started compiling Chinese oil data in 2005.

Total crude oil output in 2014 edged up 0.6% from 2013 to 210.1 million mt, or an average 4.22 million b/d.

Natural gas production in December climbed 8.9% year on year to 12.2 billion cubic meters, with total output in 2014 rising 6.9% to 123.4 Bcm, the data also showed.