Hellenic Shipping News: Poten and Partners: The Chinese Tea Party

04 June 2016: “China has been the primary growth area for oil as well as for tankers over the last decade. Over this period, the share of China in global oil demand has doubled from 6% in 2000 to 12% in 2015. During most of this period, growth was primarily driven by a few large government controlled oil companies. More recently, the government is shifting their attention from a focus on rapid economic growth to a more sustainable pace while transforming the country’s economy from manufacturing to a more competitive and consumer oriented structure. Given this objective, Chinese authorities are giving more room for a group of smaller, independent refineries, often referred to as teapot refineries. In the past, these refineries were dependent on the national oil companies for their feedstocks, but over the last year, an increasing number of the teapots have received import licenses and they have started to import significant volumes of crude oil.”