• 3 minutes e-car sales collapse
  • 6 minutes America Is Exceptional in Its Political Divide
  • 11 minutes Perovskites, a ‘dirt cheap’ alternative to silicon, just got a lot more efficient
  • 4 hours GREEN NEW DEAL = BLIZZARD OF LIES
  • 7 days If hydrogen is the answer, you're asking the wrong question
  • 22 hours How Far Have We Really Gotten With Alternative Energy
  • 11 days Biden's $2 trillion Plan for Insfrastructure and Jobs
Is U.S. Shale Production Finally Nearing Its Peak?

Is U.S. Shale Production Finally Nearing Its Peak?

U.S. shale oil production could…

Offshore Oil & Gas E&P Staging A Comeback

Offshore Oil & Gas E&P Staging A Comeback

The high success rate of…

China Holds The Key To 2024 Global Oil Demand Growth

China Holds The Key To 2024 Global Oil Demand Growth

Despite an increase in China’s…

Irina Slav

Irina Slav

Irina is a writer for Oilprice.com with over a decade of experience writing on the oil and gas industry.

More Info

Premium Content

Chinese Oil Buyers Shun U.S. Crude

Crude tanker at open sea

Chinese oil traders and refiners no longer want to sign long-term supply agreements with U.S. producers, said the chief executive of Enterprise Products Partners as quoted by Reuters, amid the deepening trade rout between Washington and Beijing.

The latest escalation in the rout followed president Trump’s complaint that the trade talks with China were going too slowly and his threat—that he went through with—to increase tariffs from 10 percent to 25 percent on US$200 billion worth of Chinese goods. The retaliatory move came promptly, with China raising tariffs on U.S. liquefied natural gas.

U.S. oil has so far been spared tariffs, but this does not seem to matter to Chinese buyers. Last year, they stopped buying U.S. crude despite a three-month truce in the middle of the year.

“Chinese companies have little incentive to buy U.S. crude due to the wide availability of crude supplies today from Iran and Russia,” Seng Yick Tee from consultancy SIA Energy told Reuters at the time. Yet trade tensions were not helping, either. With the constant threat of more tariffs, refiners were reluctant to change their buying habits.

This reluctance will persist, it seems, as just a few weeks after the trade deal seemed all but sealed, the situation deteriorated rapidly and will likely deteriorate further after Trump targeted telecoms giant Huawei’s international expansion—a move that is highly unlikely to sit well with Beijing.

Last year, between January and June, China was the biggest buyer of U.S. oil at a daily rate of 377,000 barrels. This has dropped to 41,600 bpd for the six months to February this year, although China’s total imports continued rising steadily.

In April, these averaged 10.64 million bpd, which came as a surprise to analysts as the 11-percent year-on-year increase came amid refinery maintenance activities and low local fuel demand. Imports for the first four months of the year averaged 10.03 million bpd, an 8.9-percent increase on the year.

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

ADVERTISEMENT

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:


Download The Free Oilprice App Today

Back to homepage





Leave a comment
  • Jonas Olsson on May 22 2019 said:
    377,000 barrels per day is a rounding error for the US. China can not hurt US oil if that was their peak import from the US.
  • Mamdouh Salameh on May 22 2019 said:
    Would anybody expect China to continue buying US crude oil at a time when the US is escalating its trade war against it and when it can buy Iranian crude oil at a discount?

    Even without the trade war, China wouldn’t have stopped Iranian crude because it doesn’t recognize US sanctions against Iran. Now with the trade war escalating, China will do its utmost to undermine US sanctions against Iran.

    Iran is an important oil and trade partner with China and also a crucial element in China’s Road and Belt initiative.

    Dr Mamdouh G Salameh
    International Oil Economist
    Visiting Professor of Energy Economics at ESCP Europe Business School, London

Leave a comment




EXXON Mobil -0.35
Open57.81 Trading Vol.6.96M Previous Vol.241.7B
BUY 57.15
Sell 57.00
Oilprice - The No. 1 Source for Oil & Energy News