China’s Feb Crude Oil Imports Stable MoM, Higher YoY

Chinese crude oil imports in February were mostly stable on the month at 44.14mn tons, but up by 8.4% year on year, with more sanctioned barrels arriving in China, official customs data showed.

• Crude oil imports into China stood at 44.17mn tons in January.
• China imported 352,000 tons of crude oil from Venezuela in February, the first shipments since September 2019.
• China also ramped up imports from Malaysia last month to 4.71mn tons, up from 4.22mn tons a month earlier. China typically uses Malaysian imports as a way of disguising barrels from sanctioned nations like Iran and Venezuela.
• Russia remained the largest crude oil supplier with flows to China at 9.1mn tons in February, up from 8.62mn tons in January.
• Saudi Arabia shipped 6.99mn tons of crude oil to China last month, up from 6.5mn tons a month earlier.
• China imported 4.98mn tons of Iraqi crude in February, down from 5.16mn tons.
• The UAE supplied 3.42mn tons of crude to China last month, up from 2.99mn tons a month earlier.
• China also received barrels from Brazil, Oman, Angola, Kuwait, and the US.