Despite healthy economic data, lube production is sliding in China
According to the National Bureau of Statistics, China produced 467,000 tons of lubricant products in September, compared to 486,000 in the previous month, a slide of 4.1% month-on-month and an 11.2% decline year-on-year.
September has traditionally been a busy month for lubes production, but various economic factors and slowing vehicle purchases have held back growth.
While lubricants production is not on the “Li Keqiang Index” - which offers an alternative measure to GDP growth through rail cargo, bank loan and electricity data - the slide does not reflect a recent surge in promising data from the growing superpower.
Despite a weak monthly performance, lubes production growth rose a modest 2.61% in the first nine months of 2014 to 4.395m tons.