China now leads in refining capacity

[Mister Moose]

China Is Quickly Becoming The World’s Largest Refiner
By Irina Slav - Jun 15, 2023, 7:00 PM CDT
IEA: China is on its way to becoming the country with the greatest oil refining capacity in the world.
China overtook the United States to become the world’s largest refiner last year.
China’s total refining capacity could total 19.7 million barrels daily by 2028.

Already, China accounts for more than half of global EV sales. Yet at the same time it is building more oil refining capacity. On the face of it, this may look odd and possibly even irrational. It could indeed be a miscalculation and China could end up with several million barrels in unused and unusable oil refining capacity as demand for fuels slumps.

On the other hand, it might be the same thing that China is doing with wind, solar, and coal. One of the other things that the country is the biggest in is wind and solar generation capacity. At the same time, it is also the most active builder of new coal plants, too. Because, as stated by government officials, China is all in on all energy and is not picking favourites. (Emphasis added)

China is going to become the world’s refiner. The size of its exports will depend on what the ruling party decides should be exported. And this means that China will have its hand on the global fuel price lever the way OPEC has its hand on the crude oil price lever.

https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/C ... finer.html

[deadheadskier]

Yes! China has fantastic energy policy!

[easyrider16]

Sounds like a pretty good argument for pushing alternative energy sources. What I'd really like to see is a push for more nuclear power, and investment into research of battery technologies that don't require rare earth minerals like lithium.

Also from what I've read, much of the U.S. oil industry's decision not to build new refineries has to do with markets and ROI. So I guess the question is, how much do you trust the free market to make efficient decisions?