China Gives up Saudi Oil

Saudi Arabia – the world’s largest oil exporter in recent months – has lost its stake in China for the United States. Beijing – the world’s largest oil importer – boosted imports from Washington and stopped purchases from Saudi Arabia, according to al-masirah.

According to a report by the US Oil Price website, China has imported record quantities of crude oil in recent months, taking advantage of the lowest crude prices in two decades in April’s stockpile of cheap oil. To obtain low-price oil, Chinese oil traders – both state and independent ones – bought cheap US cargoes last April. They were loaded in May, began arriving in China in June, and set records in July.

The report added that Chinese refineries stopped their crude oil’s demands from Saudi Arabia last March and April due to the short time of tankers ’journey between the Middle East and China compared to that between the United States and China. The request that was to be loaded from America in May was supposed to reach China in July, which prompted refiners to halt demand from Saudi Arabia for July.

Last month, Saudi Arabia was the third, after Russia and Iraq, on the list of major oil suppliers to China. It is the first time since two years that Riyadh has not been the first or second supplier of oil to the world’s largest oil importer.

Y.A