China 'teapot' refiners halt plants as new fuel tax bites, sources say
Several independent oil refineries in eastern China have halted operations, or plan to do so, for indefinite maintenance periods as new Chinese tariff and tax policies plunge them deeper into losses, refinery and trade sources said. The rare outages come at a time of nascent consolidation in the world's second-largest oil refining industry as an earlier-than-expected peak in Chinese fuel demand and Beijing's drive to wring out inefficiency starts to squeeze out the weakest of the small independent plants, known as teapots. At least four plants with a combined annual processing capacity of approximately 18 million metric tons, or 320,000 barrels per day, either closed crude oil distillation units (CDUs) this month or plan to in February after Beijing cut rebates on consumption tax paid for feedstock imports, the sources said.
