Private Chinese refiners in the Shangdong province are estimated to have bought 800,000 bpd of Iranian crude oil and condensate in March.- As Indian refiners and China’s state-owned oil giants buy up Russian crude, teapots are increasingly reliant on Iranian oil.
- There isn’t any official data on Iranian imports into China, but tanker-tracking companies estimate a 20% increase in March.
China’s private refiners, the so-called teapots, are estimated to have imported 800,000 barrels per day (bpd) of Iranian crude oil and condensate in March, up by 20% compared to February, Emma Li, an analyst with Vortexa, told Bloomberg.
Imports from Iran into the Shandong province—home to most of the private refiners in China—could continue to be robust in the coming months, according to the analyst.
There isn’t official data on Iranian imports into China, so the market relies on tanker-tracking companies that aim to capture the true picture of how much of Iran’s oil, sanctioned by the U.S. and going to very few destinations these days, is being shipped to China.
Russia was the single largest crude oil supplier to China in January and February, overtaking Saudi Arabia, which was the number-one supplier of oil to China last year, according to Chinese customs data from last month. As China accelerated the buying of cheap Russian crude oil at discounts to international benchmarks, Chinese imports of crude from Russia jumped by 23.8% year over year to 1.94 million barrels per day (bpd) in January and February 2023.
India, for its part, is also boosting imports of Russian oil to record levels. In February, Russia remained India’s top oil supplier for a fifth consecutive month.
Both India and China are not abiding by the G7 price cap as they seek opportunistic purchases of cheap crude.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com