Beijing, 23 June 2022 (TDI): China’s crude oil import from Russia reached an all-time high in the previous month, surpassing Saudi Arabia as the top oil supplier.
The level of crude oil import of China increased by about 55% as compared to the previous year, a recording breaking level of oil import between China and Russia.
Amid the Ukraine war and sanctions on Russia, Chinese refiners took advantage of cashing in more oil imports at a discounted rate.
According to the data released by the Chinese general administration of customs, oil, and other supplies transported via the East Siberia Pacific Ocean pipeline route, are worth almost 8.4 million tonnes.
This level of trade is equivalent to round about 1.98 million barrels per day (bpd) as compared to 1.59 (bpd) in April.
The data shows that despite sanctions on Russia, they have become the world’s top exporter of crude oil and are able to find buyers in such circumstances and gain top raking, although they have to sell at a discounted rate.
Despite that, even though the Chinese economy has been impacted by the Covid pandemic, it has become a top importer. Consequently, that enables China to increase competing supplies from West Africa and Brazil.
Saudi Arabia on the other hand remains to be the second top oil supplier having May volumes up to 9% total of 7.82 million tonnes, nearly 1.84 million (bpd).
The latest data shows that China’s oil import from Iran stood at 260,000 tonnes previous month. Similarly, import of oil are nearly 7% of China total crude oil import.
In the month of May, China’s total crude oil import increased about 12% to 10.8 million (bpd) as compared to 10.3 million (bpd) in 2021.
Apart from that, China imported Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) from Russia up to 400,00 tonnes last month, 56% more than the previous year in May 2021.
Oil Import Statistics
The below table breakdown shows detailed statistics of oil import, with volumes in million tonnes. (Tonne = 7.3 barrels for crude oil conversation)
Environmental Economist. Research Interests: Ecotourism, Nature Conservation, Resource Economics, Sustainable Development
