China's crude oil throughput rose to a record in June, up 7.7 percent from a year earlier, following the start-up of two new, large refineries, official data showed on Monday.

Crude processing volumes last month reached 53.7 million tonnes, or about 13.07 million barrels per day (bpd), beating the previous record in April of 12.68 million bpd, according to figures from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

The hefty processing rates were supported by the start up of two major new refineries. Private firm Hengli Petrochemical ramped up its 400,000-bpd refinery in Dalian to full capacity in late May and Zhejiang Petrochemical began trial runs at a similar-sized facility on the east coast.

"The high output data was mainly due to the two new plants, but still the figure exceeds our estimates as many refineries were shut for maintenance," said Wang Zhao, an analyst with Sublime Information Co, a local consultancy, based in Zibo in east China’s Shandong Province.

"We expect throughput to be lower in the coming months on extended plant shutdowns, because inventories of gasoline and diesel were at the high end and domestic fuel demand remained weak," said Wang.

Refineries in Shandong, the country's hub for smaller independent plants, cut throughput to curb losses after Hengli marketed gasoline at a 12-percent discount to the rates offered by plants in Shandong.

The NBS data also showed that China’s crude oil output last month climbed by one percent from a year earlier to 16.1 million tonnes, or about 3.92 million bpd, up from May's 3.82 million bpd.

Natural gas production in June rose by 13.1 percent from a year earlier to 13.9 billion cubic meters (bcm). Output for the first half increased by 10.3 percent from a year earlier to 86.4 bcm.

The much faster growth in gas production, which exceeds analysts forecast of six to eight percent, was spurred by state oil majors' efforts in focusing spending increases on production of the cleaner burning fuel.