PetroChina, the country's dominant oil and gas producer, was shutting down an 80,000 barrels per day (bpd) crude oil distillation unit in its Jinzhou refinery on Friday for a one-month maintenance period, an industry source said.

Jinzhou had planned to conduct the regular repairs in the second quarter.

As a result, crude oil throughput in the 150,000-bpd plant will fall to about 97,300 bpd in April from some 122,500 bpd last month, according to the source.