Chinese refiners continue to buy high volumes of crude oil from Iran, with first-half imports at the major port clusters estimated at nearly 1.4 million barrels per day (bpd), according to oil flow tracking data from Kpler cited by Bloomberg.
Ports near industrial clusters Qingdao, Dalian, and Zhoushan are importing crude from Iran in several legs from the Persian Gulf via Malaysia with ship-to-ship (STS) transfers using shadow fleet vessels and tankers blacklisted by the United States.
Officially, China’s customs data show there haven’t been any crude imports from Iran since 2022. Unofficially, China buys nearly 90% of all of Iran’s crude exports in multiple-stage journeys and transfers from one tanker to another.
Last month alone, ports near Qingdao welcomed a total of 15.5 million barrels of Iranian crude, according to Kpler’s data.
These barrels were worth nearly $1 billion in revenue for Iran at current prices for its discounted crude, Bloomberg has estimated.
China hiked its imports of crude oil from Iran in June, as Iran accelerated loadings in May and independent Chinese refiners bought more discounted Iranian barrels.
Amid overall high imports in recent weeks, thanks to the lower oil prices in April and May when cargoes were bought, China significantly boosted its imports of crude from Iran this month, according to data from tanker-tracking firms cited by Reuters.
The high volumes of Iranian oil going into China is due to multi-year high Iranian crude oil loadings in May and Chinese independent refiners, the so-called teapots, bringing in more supply of the cheaper Iranian crude to fill inventories for the peak summer demand season.
Analysts expect Chinese oil imports from Iran to remain at high levels in the coming weeks amid signals from the U.S. Administration that it would be more lenient toward China buying Iran’s oil.
Following the U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear sites, U.S. President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social that “China can now continue to purchase Oil from Iran. Hopefully, they will be purchasing plenty from the US, also.”
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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