(Adds details and context in paragraphs 3-11) Oct 20 (Reuters) – China's crude oil throughput in September rose 6.8% from a year earlier, official data showed on Monday, as the country's refineries raised their utilisation rates. The world's second-largest oil consumer processed 62.69 million metric tons of crude in September, according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics, or about 15.26 million barrels per day (bpd). The daily processing rate is the highest since September 2023, according to Reuters records. Crude oil throughput during January to September was 550.81 million metric tons, or 14.73 million bpd, up 3.7% compared to the same period last year. China’s refinery utilisation rates in September climbed to their highest so far this year, Chinese consulting firm Oilchem said in its monthly report on September 30. State-owned refineries’ utilisation last month rose by 3.55 percentage points from a year earlier to 81.05% of capacity, while independent refiners increased their utilisation by 3.02 percentage points to 62.17%, Oilchem added. The NBS data also showed that China’s domestic crude oil production in September rose 4.1% from a year earlier to 17.77 million tons, or 4.32 million bpd. Crude output for the first nine months of the year rose 1.7% to 162.63 million tons, or 4.35 million bpd. Natural gas production last month increased 9.4% year-on-year to 21.2 billion cubic meters, with output from January to September rising 6.4% from the year-ago period to 194.9 billion cubic meters, the data showed. (1 metric ton of crude oil=7.3 barrels) ($1 = 7.1248 Chinese yuan renminbi) (Reporting by Sam Li and Lewis Jackson; Editing by Christian Schmollinger)
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