Russia Remains China's Top Oil Supplier

Russia remained China's top crude oil supplier in 2018 by boosting shipments 20% year on year to 1.44 million bpd, while the US ended the year with a robust 60% growth in shipments to Asia's biggest oil consumer, despite trade tensions squeezing volumes towards the later part of the year.
Among the top 10 suppliers, while Brazil and Congo posted the sharpest year-on-year rises of 37% and 41.6%, respectively, Iran and Venezuela were the only two countries that posted negative growth, with falls of 6% and 23.6%, respectively, latest data released by China's General Administration of Customs showed, Platts reported.
Trade sources said that volumes from Iran would remain subdued in 2019 amid concerns on whether Washington would extend the waiver on purchases from Iran. In addition, Chinese importers are keeping a close watch on production prospects in Venezuela.
Russia boosted its market share to 15.5% in 2018, from 14.2% in 2017. It was the third continuous year for Russia to take the top spot since 2016, with supplies growing 19.6% year on year in 2018, 13.9% in 2017 and 23.7% in 2016.
Imports from Russia are expected to remain robust in 2019, with term barrels flowing to PetroChina's refineries. The second Russia-China pipeline also started commercial operations in 2018. Meanwhile, spot buying from independent refineries are also showing a healthy trend.
The non-OPEC producer adopts a different pricing basis for the sale of various crude grades to the giant Asian consumer, keeping itself immune to international benchmark price volatility.
China's crude imports from Iran rose to 506,000 bpd in December, up 29.9% on a barrels-per-day basis from November when the US re-imposed sanctions on the producer.