A report by Reuters suggests that the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) has resumed negotiations with Asian customers since Joe Biden took office.
The decades-old sanctions on Iran had caused a massive drop in exports to China, India, Japan, and South Korea. Such measures and production cuts by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) led to tight supplies of the Middle East’s crude oil production in Asia, the top global oil market.
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Note that Asia imports more than half of its crude from the Middle East.
How Much Oil Did Iran Deliver to China?
As per the data released by Refinitiv Trading Solutions, Iran moved more than 300,000 bpd (barrels per day) of crude oil to China since January 2020.
Of these, 75 percent were indirect imports from Iran through Oman, the UAE, or Malaysia to China’s Shandong province, which is home to the majority of its refiners.
The remaining 25 percent was marked as official purchases for China’s reserves to offer cover against heavy sanctions by the US.
Emma Li, a representative of Refinitiv Crude, said that “Volumes started to surge from the last quarter of 2020, with Shandong province as the top receiving region which indicates independent plants are the main consumers”.
She suggested that oil tankers carrying Iranian crude switch their transponders off to avoid being detected but then appear on the radar near Oman, the UAE, and Iraq. A few clever ones even transfer parts of their cargoes to ships near Singapore or Malaysia before sailing off to the refiners’ pit in China, she added.
When asked to comment on the oil transactions, a spokesperson for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs hinted at the cordial relationship between China and Iran instead, adding that “the cooperation between China and Iran under the framework of international laws is both reasonable and legitimate, and deserves respect and protection”.
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For now, the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) has declined to comment on the matter, but it looks like the Government of Iran is awaiting a response from the USA before reaffirming anything definitive.
