WRAPUP 1-China top refiners to up July crude runs to record

By Jim Bai and Tom Miles

BEIJING, July 8 (Reuters) - China's leading refineries will
raise their crude oil processing in July to fresh highs from
record levels in June, encouraged by recent fuel price hikes
and rising sales amid increasing signs of economic recovery.

China raised diesel and gasoline prices by 9-10 percent on
June 30 after hiking them by 6-7 percent on June 1, giving a
boost to refiners faced with rising crude oil costs.

"This is already the best time compared with the past year
and you have no reason not to move up operations," said an
official with a refinery in eastern China, who declined to be
named as he was not authorised to speak to media.

Twelve major plants accounting for more than a third of
China's capacity, most of them on the eastern and southern
seaboards, will process 2.67 million barrels per day (bpd) of
crude oil in July, up more than 1 percent from the 2.64 million
bpd in June, a Reuters poll showed.

The July volume would represent around 90 percent of their
total refining capacity.

For a history of crude runs by these plants, please click:
here

The increase would come mainly because Dalian, PetroChina's
(0857.HK)(601857.SS) largest refinery, began raising runs since
last month and Fujian, a joint venture between Sinopec
(600028.SS) (0386.HK), Exxon Mobil (XOM.N) and Saudi Aramco,
began churning out fuels from a new facility after starting
trial runs from May.

Previously, Dalian's crude processing volumes only
surpassed 300,000 bpd in October and November last year,
despite claims before the Beijing summer Olympics to have
become China's largest plant with capacity of 410,000 bpd.

Only Sinopec's Jinling refinery plans a moderate cut in
crude throughput in July because of maintenance of some
secondary facilities. [ID:nPEK101358]

MORE RUNS AHEAD?

China's fuel stocks have been largely in decline since
earlier this year while fuel sales have been gradually picking
up, in line with a similar trend in power demand, as more and
more indicators showed the economy was stabilising and even
moving towards an early recovery.

With crude oil prices CLc1 plunging in recent days from a
2009 peak on June 30 of $73.38 a barrel, analysts and industry
officials were gaining confidence that the outlook for the
refining sector will not get worse, at least for the near
future.

"Crude processing is likely to continue growing in the
third quarter as the demand is there," said Yan Beina, an
analyst with Guosen Securities.

"Many refineries have prepared themselves for more
production by bringing maintenance forward to the first half of
this year when demand was comparatively low."

In addition, new refineries that are coming on line will
boost production capacity and possibly replace some need for
imports, she added.

Also, China was expected to continue to curb diesel exports
in July as oil firms will probably hold back more for the
domestic market, traders have said. [ID:nSP538750]
========================================================
PLANT JULY RUNS JUNE RUNS REFINING CAPACITY

(bpd)
========================================================
Zhenhai 381,500 377,200 400,000
Maoming 282,600 287,100 270,000
Qilu 211,900 209,300 200,000
Gaoqiao 211,900 216,600 230,000
Guangzhou 226,100 219,000 270,000
Jinling 240,200 272,500 270,000
Dalian 329,700 328,500 410,000
Lanzhou 211,900 209,100 200,000
Fujian 121,000 80,000 240,000
Jinzhou 141,300 138,700 140,000
Jinxi 122,500 121,700 150,000
WEPEC 186,000 182,500 200,000
========================================================
TOTAL* 2.67 2.64 2.98
========================================================

*in million bpd.
(Additional reporting by Eadie Chen; Editing by Michael
Urquhart)