With the start of new refining facilities in China, crude oil demand may rise, and the Brent crude oil futures prices have regained some lost ground from the previous trading day.

As of 12:00 Beijing time, the price of Brent crude oil December contract was $77.14 per barrel, up 56 cents from the settlement price on October 9, with the contract price falling 60 cents from the previous trading day at that time.

The New York Mercantile Exchange (Nymex) crude oil November contract price was $73.79 per barrel, up 55 cents from the settlement price on October 9, with the contract price falling 33 cents from the previous trading day at that time.

China's state-owned Sinopec plans to start a new 0.22 million barrels per day crude distillation unit (CDU) at its Zhenhai refinery in Zhejiang Province in December. This expansion will increase Sinopec's largest refining base's refining capacity to 0.76 million barrels per day, second only to the 0.8 million barrels per day Rongsheng Petro Chemical's Zhejiang Petrochemical refinery.

The new CDU is designed to process Middle East Gulf crude oil. The Zhenhai refinery relies on stable supplies of crude oil from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, and Oman, although it also processes West African and Russian ESPO blend crude oil.

Libya's crude oil exports are expected to increase this month after the country lifted the oil blockade. October loading plans for 11 out of 12 grades of crude in the country have been announced, with a total export volume reaching 0.587 million barrels per day. According to Argus tracking data, this is 0.08 million barrels higher than September's export volume.

However, exports may take longer to recover compared to production, as the country is replenishing its crude oil inventories. The state-owned NOC stated this week that Libya's crude oil production had exceeded 1 million barrels per day following the lifting of the blockade on October 3.

The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported that US crude oil inventories increased by 5.8 million barrels last week due to increased production and refinery slowdowns. As of the week ending October 4, US crude oil inventories increased to 0.4227 billion barrels, higher than the previous week's 0.4169 billion barrels. This is an increase of 3.9 million barrels from the previous week, but inventories are still 1.5 million barrels lower than the same period in 2023.

US crude oil exports fell below 4 million barrels per day for the first time in August, reaching the lowest level in 8 months. According to data from the US Census Bureau, crude oil loadings in August decreased to 3.91 million barrels per day, a decrease from 4.4 million barrels per day in the same period last year. The export volume in July was 4.19 million barrels per day.

Venezuela's crude oil production increased by nearly 11% year-on-year, according to data from the Ministry of Petroleum. In September, Venezuela's crude oil production was 0.943 million barrels per day, an increase of 1% from August, but still below the country's daily goal of 1 million barrels of oil production.

(The above content is from Argus, an independent international energy and commodity price assessment agency)