Last year, Russia sent a record 107.02 million tons of crude oil to China, equivalent to 2.14 million barrels per day. Compared to the previous year, supply increased by almost 25%: in 2022, 1.72 million barrels per day were exported from Russia to China.
At the same time, Russia also became China’s largest crude oil supplier in 2023, as imports from Saudi Arabia, which held the top spot last year, fell by 1.8% to 85.96 million tons last year.
CNBC writes that the Middle East oil company has lost market share in China to Russia because, due to Western sanctions, the so-called Ural oil is cheaper than the goods offered by the Saudis.
Although on paper the West has set a maximum price for Russian crude oil at $60 per barrel, in reality Ural oil has been trading above this limit for virtually the entire second half of 2023. As of late September the price of Russian crude oil also rose above 80 dollars a barrel.
According to CNBC, Indian and Chinese refiners, interested in jointly purchasing crude oil at a cheaper price, have helped push the price of Ural crude oil above the limit. Sanctions are not a big deal, because there are many ways to get around them. For example, due to sanctions, Chinese refineries do not purchase fuel directly from Russia, but use intermediaries for deliveries and ship insurance.
China’s total crude oil imports rose to a record 563.99 million tons in 2023, equivalent to 11.28 million barrels per day.
2024-01-21 11:04:12
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