China Implements Ban on Domestic Sales of Higher-Sulfur Diesel

by Ship & Bunker News Team
Wednesday November 1, 2017

Effective today, China has implemented a ban on the domestic sale of diesel fuel with a sulfur content higher than 10 parts per millions (ppm), Reuters reports.

The move, which will affect sales of such fuels to ships and trucks, is expected to prompt oil companies in the country export surplus higher-sulfur diesel over the coming months.

"Companies may have extra high-sulfur diesel to sell as they replace storage tanks with cleaner fuel," a fuel marketing manager at PetroChina told Reuters.

To deal with the new fuel quality rules, refineries are reported to have increased imports of lower-sulfur crude oil, leading to a record high in September - a 60 percent year-on-year increase - of Russian grades being shipped into China.

One oil analyst says the largest challenge in implementing the ban is likely to be enforcement, as the government's quality inspectors can only run random checks.

In September, in another effort to reduce air pollution, the Government of China announced that the Ministry of Transport, the National Energy Administration, and State Grid Corporation of China had signed an agreement to install shore power along the Grand Canal.