China Buys More Oil From US, Less From Iran

China’s imports of Iranian crude dropped in September both compared to the same month last year and to August, while crude oil imports from the US doubled year-on-year in September despite the trade war, according to data from China’s General Administration of Customs, Reuters reported.
Chinese oil imports from Iran slumped by 34% on the year to 518,300 bpd in September. China’s crude oil imports from Iran averaged 798,423 bpd in August, the customs data showed on Thursday, Oil Price reported.
Key Asian buyers of Iranian oil dramatically cut their purchases from Iran in September to the lowest level since the previous sanctions on Tehran were lifted in January 2016. 
While India increased its purchases of Iranian oil compared to September last year, China and Japan significantly reduced their imports from Iran, while South Korea stopped Iranian oil imports altogether—for the first time since September 2012, Reuters said, citing ship-tracking and government data.
At the same time, China’s crude oil imports from the United States more than doubled in September compared to a year earlier, to 1.04 million tons—or around 253,000 bpd—from 495,551 tons, despite the fact that the US-China trade war intensified at the end of the summer with more tariffs slapped by both sides. 
Most of the increase in China’s US imports came from Asia’s biggest refiner Sinopec, which purchases some 80% of all US oil imported in China, a Chinese state oil official familiar with the country’s US oil imports told Reuters.