East Asian oil markets and refining

An overview of the changes taking place and about to take place in China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan in the oil business is presented. The focus is mainly on product demand, quality of product, refining and trade balances. Charts show (i) demand for oil products to 2005, (ii) oil demand to 2005, (iii) the demand barrel by country, (iv) CDU capacity to 2005, (v) cracking to distillation ratios to 2005, (vi) fuel oil's share in demand barrel and (vii) net product trade. It was concluded that despite recent economic difficulties in East Asia, the oil market is large and dynamic and China in particular is a major oil producer with a fast growing oil demand. Overall, East Asia is a growth market for petroleum with an expected addition of some 2.4 million bpd of extra demand between 1998 and 2005. (UK)