Price of crude oil in April 2007 continued to recover. The average price of WTI, Minas and Brent in April was respectively USD64/bucket, USD67.3/bucket and USD67.5/bucket, up by 5.5%, 15.8% and 8.6% separately month on month.

Gross profit of refined oil in April saw an obvious decline. The price per ton of gasoline and diesel oil was respectively RMB745.73 and RMB847.61 lower than that of Minas, down by 20% and 18% respectively.

The gross profit for diesel oil wholesale has been dropping in recent months, and even as low as RMB273/ton in Apr, down by 57% over the highest price in Sep 2006, even though, gross profit for retail was still considerable, at RMB 362/ton. The gross profits for both wholesale and retail of gasoline were RMB459/ton, seeing a steady momentum.

The price of naphtha rose by 11.4% month on month, and price of ethylene and butadiene fell by 7.4%. Due to the rise of naphtha price, the price gap between key petrochemicals and naphtha got narrowed. The price differences between ethylene and naphtha, polypropylene and naphtha, and PVC and naphtha decreased by 41.2%, 14.6% and 20.8% respectively.

Apparent Consumption of Key Petroleum Products and Petrochemicals