EXXONMOBIL EYES CHINA’S ‘TEAPOT’ REFINING MART
DONGYING (China): Exxon Mobil Corp’s global oil marketing team stormed into China this week hoping to elbow aside rivals and gain access to the nation’s “teapot” refining market, said executives.
The push by ExxonMobil, the world’s biggest oil and gas firm by market value, to court the independent refiners, known as “teapots”, illustrates the clout they are exerting on the global oil market since winning crude import licences from the government in 2015.
The refiners are big foreign crude buyers in a country that is the world’s largest oil importer.
To make up for a late arrival, ExxonMobil this week sent a dozen traders and marketers, including global crude marketing manager Thomas Martenak, to an oil trade show, here, a hub for the independent refiners in the eastern province of Shandong.
The team included crude oil traders, products marketers and finance staff from Houston, Singapore, Thailand and Shanghai.
At a booth at the centre of downtown exhibit hall, staff handed out gift bags containing backpacks emblazoned with the ExxonMobil logo, flanked by stands from Malaysia’s Petroliam Nasional Bhd and France’s Total and about 20 local refiners.
Martenak said ExxonMobil was drawn by the growing importance of China’s independent refiners in the regional market, rather than politics.
“We probably are not as fast as some of the traders... we want to make it up quickly, so we can become a major supplier in the region,” said Martenak.
His team has also met with potential teapot clients in private meetings, but their main purpose was to act as ExxonMobil’s “ambassador ” rather than cutting deals.