China tax crackdown threatens to curb 'teapot' refiners' demand

Singapore

EVERYONE wants a share of the world's hottest oil market, including China's taxman.

Purchases by the country's independent refiners, granted permission last year to buy foreign crude, have soaked up some of the global oil glut and helped revive prices after the biggest collapse in a generation. Sellers from Saudi Arabia to BP plc have been supplying the plants known as teapots, which account for a third of the nation's processing capacity. Now, a government tax crackdown threatens to constrain this new source of demand from China, which rivals the US as the world's biggest importer.