China Oil Supply Declines; Gasoline Rises Most in Two Years

China's commercial crude inventories fell to the lowest level in six months while gasoline stockpiles rose the most in two years in November, according to the official Xinhua news agency.

Crude supplies, excluding emergency reserves, fell 1 percent to 30.25 million metric tons at the end of last month from October, according to Bloomberg calculations based on data released today by China Oil, Gas & Petrochemicals, a Xinhua publication. That's the lowest since May. Gasoline stockpiles jumped 6.97 percent to 6.47 million tons, the biggest gain since November 2010.

Diesel supply climbed 1.93 percent to 7.88 million tons and kerosene inventories increased 3.4 percent to 1.49 million, today's data show.

China processed a record 41.6 million tons of crude last month, equivalent to 10.2 million barrels a day, government data showed this month. Gasoline output rose 15.8 percent from a year ago to 8 million tons, an all-time high. Crude imports fell 1.3 percent from the prior month to 23.37 million tons.

"Record-high crude throughput and a slight dip in crude imports and domestic crude output in November led to the decrease in crude oil stocks," Xinhua said in the report. "The record crude throughput resulted in record-setting output of oil products in November. The demand for gasoline and kerosene was weak in the winter."