China has significantly reduced its purchases of Iranian oil, with supplies falling by about a fifth to 1.1 million barrels per day in May. About this informs Bloomberg.
“The U.S. is increasing sanctions, which is making logistics more difficult. Demand has also decreased, mainly due to delayed repairs at Chinese refineries, which will now last until July.”, — said Vortexa senior analyst Emma Lee.
Officially, China does not declare the import of Iranian oil – often the raw material is registered as Malaysian after transshipment at sea near Southeast Asia. The main buyers of Iranian oil remain independent Chinese refineries, known as “teapots”, which seek cheap raw materials to preserve profits. At the same time, this year they are working at reduced capacities and have already accumulated significant reserves in the first half of the year.
According to Vortexa, the attractiveness of Iranian oil also decreased against the background of competitive prices for Russian brands, in particular Sokol and Novy Port.
It will be recalled that on April 23, China’s largest state-owned oil company and Asia’s leading oil refiner Sinopec resumed purchases of Russian oil after a break in March to assess sanctions risks. In March, Chinese state-owned oil companies temporarily stopped buying Russian oil due to new US sanctions.
