New plants, US trade worries to drive China's 2025 naphtha imports to record

Mohi Narayan and Sam Li

Wed, Jul 16, 2025, 12:22 PM 3 min read

By Mohi Narayan and Sam Li

NEW DELHI/BEIJING (Reuters) -China's naphtha imports volition deed grounds levels this twelvemonth arsenic caller plants and caution implicit U.S. propane and ethane purchases volition thrust request and enactment refiners' margins for the petrochemical feedstock, analysts and traders said.

Cracker operators successful the world's largest petrochemical producer, which pivoted successful caller years to cheaper U.S. propane and ethane feedstock, are switching immoderate request backmost to naphtha aft being ensnared successful the U.S.-China commercialized warfare that disrupted their U.S. supplies, the sources said.

The request to diversify supplies and to conscionable request from caller plants volition thrust naphtha imports to an all-time precocious of 16 cardinal to 17 cardinal metric tons (144 cardinal to 153 cardinal barrels) this year, consultancies Rystad Energy and FGE said. JLC pegs 2025 imports astatine astir 15 cardinal tons.

China imported astir 12 cardinal tons successful 2024, authoritative information showed.

"With issues successful imports of ethane and propane, determination is simply a spot origin that has travel into play erstwhile it comes to U.S. cargoes," said Pankaj Srivastava, elder vice president, commodity markets astatine Rystad Energy.

"Naphtha, connected the different hand, is autarkic of these concerns due to the fact that suppliers are varied."

A full of 4 cardinal tons per twelvemonth (tpy) of ethylene capableness is slated to travel online successful China by end-2025, aiding import demand, and this volition summation to astir 6 cardinal tpy by archetypal fractional of 2026, helium added.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) said successful its July study that China's naphtha request is expected to emergence by astir 6% successful 2025 and by 8.6% successful 2026, importantly outpacing the combined maturation of propane and ethane, which is projected astatine conscionable 2.3% successful 2025 and 1.3% successful 2026.

Following the disruption successful U.S. supply, China issued a 2nd batch of 2025 naphtha import quotas successful June totalling astir 24 cardinal tons, astir doubling past year's allocations.

China imported astir 6 cardinal tons of naphtha betwixt January and May, up 22.81% on-year and the highest level since 2015, authorities information showed, with Russia, the United Arab Emirates and South Korea the biggest suppliers.

This compares with a 6% on-year emergence successful propane imports to 12.3 cardinal tons successful the archetypal 5 months, portion ethane imports were level astatine 2.3 cardinal tons successful the aforesaid period, authorities information showed.

China's liquefied petroleum state (LPG) imports, which see propane, are apt to enactment little successful the 3rd 4th amid cautious buying of U.S. cargoes, Energy Aspects said successful a July 4 note.

The robust naphtha request is expected to underpin Asian refiners' margins, analysts said. Naphtha margins person risen astir 4% this period to $73.30 implicit Brent crude connected hopes of steadfast feedstock request from China.