Environmental protection requirements are becoming increasingly stringent, and low-sulfur fuel oil market development welcomes good opportunities

Fuel oil is made from the cracked residual oil and straight-run residual oil of petroleum. According to different sulfur content, fuel oil can be divided into high-sulfur fuel oil, low-sulfur fuel oil and ultra-low-sulfur fuel oil. Low-sulfur fuel oil refers to fuel oil with a sulfur content below 0.50%m/m. Low-sulfur fuel oil is a market segment of fuel oil. The two production processes are roughly the same. Currently, the production process of low-sulfur fuel oil is mainly divided into three types: distillation process, blending/blending process and residual oil processing equipment.

The low-sulfur fuel oil industry chain is simple. The upstream is the raw material supply layer, the midstream is the production layer, and the downstream is the consumption layer. Low-sulfur fuel oil has the advantages of high safety and reliability, but it also has problems such as high operating costs and large investment. Compared with ordinary fuel oil, low-sulfur fuel oil has a relatively single application and is mainly used in the shipbuilding field. In recent years, as environmental protection and emission requirements have become stricter, market demand for low-sulfur fuel oil has gradually been released.

According to the “2022-2026 Low Sulfur Fuel Oil Industry Market In-depth Research and Investment Prospects Forecast Analysis Report released by the Industrial Research Center , according to the requirements of the International Maritime Organization, starting from January 1, 2020, the fuel content used by ships around the world shall not exceed 0.5%. Against this background, the low-sulfur fuel oil market is facing development opportunities. Marine oil can be divided into bonded oil and domestic trade oil. In 2021, my country’s bonded low-sulfur fuel oil production exceeded 11 million tons, a year-on-year increase of 40.6%.

With the global low-sulfur fuel oil operation, my country’s low-sulfur fuel oil market has also entered a period of stable growth. Under the supervision of relevant policies, domestic refineries have successively launched large-scale production of low-sulfur fuel oil. As of the end of 2020, more than 30 domestic refineries have completed the production line of low-sulfur ship fuel oil. From the perspective of consumption proportion, my country’s low-sulfur fuel oil consumption market is mainly distributed in East China, South China and other regions. The combined consumption proportion of these two regions reaches more than 52.8%, of which East China’s consumption accounted for more than 30.0%.

my country’s low-sulfur fuel oil market is highly concentrated. The main production companies are PetroChina, Sinopec and CNOOC, of ​​which Sinopec’s production capacity accounts for 60%. Specifically, in 2020, Qingdao Petrochemical, Liaohe Petrochemical, Maoming Petrochemical, Zhoushan Petrochemical and Jinling Petrochemical are the five companies with the highest low-sulfur fuel oil production in my country. At present, my country’s low-sulfur fuel oil market has entered a period of stable growth. It is expected that my country’s bonded low-sulfur fuel oil production will reach 13.6 million tons in 2022.

Industry analysts said that increasingly stringent environmental protection requirements and adjustments to industrial policies have provided good opportunities for the development of the global low-sulfur fuel oil market. Under the trend of low-sulfur fuel oil operation, my country’s low-sulfur fuel oil market has also entered a period of stable growth. my country’s low-sulfur fuel oil market is highly concentrated. In the future, with the active deployment of Sinopec, PetroChina and other companies, low-sulfur fuel oil will gradually become a mainstream product in the market.