Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC) and PetroChina celebrated the delivery of the first full cargo carrying Kuwaiti crude oil to China's largest refining base in the northeast port city of Dalian, KUNA quoted KPC's office as saying today. PetroChina, the country's top oil producer, has recently completed upgrading Dalian's No.7 refinery and chose Kuwait Export Crude (KEC) as its first cargo for the new unit, which is designed to process sour crude, the KPC office said. The facility is one of the most important component parts of the newly upgraded 410,000 barrel-per-day (bpd) refinery. A KPC delegation led by Abdulhakim Al-Mudhaf, Crude Manager of International Marketing Sector, attended the ceremony to witness the historic arrival of Kuwaiti crude in Dalian by the very large crude carrier, which loaded from Kuwait earlier this month. Al-Mudhaf expressed KPC's willingness to expand the oil supply to China, the world's second-largest oil consumer, and to boost cooperation with domestic oil giants. The Dalian refinery used to process only sweet crude due to technical constraint. According to China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), PetroChina's parent, all six large-sized refining devices will be put into use at the Dalian refinery by late this year to make it capable of processing 15.5 million tons a year (310,000 bpd) of high sulphur, or "sour" crude. Currently, the sour crude oil accounts for more of the global crude oil output and the prices are comparatively low, said CNPC. The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences forecast that China's oil consumption will rise to 407 million tons in 2010 amid economic boom, with demand growing at an annual rate of 4.5 percent. Refined oil is expected to account for 54.1 percent of the total oil demand in 2010, the think tank said. To meet soaring demand in the Chinese market, in 2005, KPC established a representative office in Beijing.
