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| China's oil consumption tax rebate unlikely to boost trading volumes |
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| News Source：http://www.jinchemical.com/
; SendDate：2014-3-25 13:41:24 |
China's newly announced rebate on a consumption tax for gasoil and gasoline -- which is meant to encourage teapot refiners and blenders to buy and further process off-specification gasoil and gasoline -- is not likely to have a significant impact on trading volumes, sources told Platts Thursday.
China's State Administration of Taxation, in a notice dated February 19 but released on its website March 13, said rebates would be given to companies which bought off-specification gasoil and gasoline for use as feedstock or blending materials to produce on-specification barrels.
The main aim of the rebate -- which will be backdated to January 1 this year -- is to reduce pollution caused by the consumption of off-spec barrels, the agency said.
Off-spec oil products refer to gasoil and gasoline, which do not meet the national emission standards. These can be consumed directly by end-users or further processed in hydrotreaters or blended with MTBE, aromatics, naphtha in order to meet the standards.
China's independent teapot refiners -- which tend to have a refining capacity of less than 5 million mt/year and limited secondary secondary processing units -- typically buy these off-spec barrels to produce on-spec oil products.
The central government had earlier mandated a nationwide transition to the National Phase 4 emission standard for gasoline effective January 1 this year, and a transition to National Phase 4 diesel used in vehicles effective December 31 this year. The National Phase 4 standard limits the sulfur content in the products to 50 parts per million, compared with 350 ppm under the National Phase 3 standard.
However market sources said Thursday that the new rebate is unlikely to result in increased purchases of off-spec material for the purpose of blending or improved margins for refiners and blenders, as many of these companies are already evading payment of the consumption tax.
"We don't expect the rebate would boost buying interest from refiners with hydrotreaters or oil products blenders for off-spec barrels, because they already enjoy a status close to tax-free by declaring their oil products as other items which are exempt by the government from consumption tax," said a source at a teapot refinery in eastern Shandong province, where the bulk of such facilities are located.
Currently, there is a consumption tax of Yuan 1,388/mt on gasoline and Yuan 941/mt on gasoil.
However, since the introduction of the consumption tax in 1993, many teapot refiners and blenders have been evading payment of the tax by declaring their off-spec gasoil and gasoline as other products such as fuel oil, aromatics, naphtha, asphalt and LPG, which are all exempt from the consumption tax, said several sources.
As such, the introduction of the rebate will just mean companies will now be able to avoid the cost of the tax legally, said one buyer from a teapot refinery that has a hydrotreater.
"Declaring the off-spec gasoline as gasoline instead of fuel oil or other items sounds more reasonable and legal, but there won't be much tax cost difference," he said. |
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