India and China’s purchases of Russian crude oil in May are seen to have breached all-time highs.<\/p>\n
As buyers including these two big economies gorged on discounted supplies from Russia, it led to a fall in demand for oil from the Middle East and Africa, news agency Reuters reported citing shiptracking data. <\/p>\n
China, world’s No. 1 crude importer, India (world No. 3) are top buyers of Russian oil. In May, these two imported about 110 million barrels in May from Russia. This was a nearly 10% jump month on month and came despite American warnings against price cap evasion.<\/p>\n
Arrivals of Russian shipments in India are assessed to have reached a record high of 8.6 million tonnes (62.8 million barrels) while China is expected to have received 6 million tonnes, steady from April, Reuters said based on Vortexa data.<\/p>\n
Data from Kpler, another big tracker, showed a similar trend. As per Kpler, India’s imports touched a record of 66.7 million barrels and China’s was at 49.2 million barrels.<\/p>\n
According to the data, Indian refiners increased purchases of medium sour crude Urals and lighter grades such as Sokol and Varandey, in addition to a steady inflow of ESPO crude exported from the Pacific port of Kozmino.<\/p>\n
China, where refiners are pushing to cut feedstock costs and improve refining margins amid a slower-than-expected economic recovery, has bought more and more Russian oil in recent months.<\/p>\n
“Chinese buyers’ increased demand for Russian oil loading in April and beyond was supported by higher profitability of supplies amid softer freight and firmer differentials,” Reuters said quoting a trader.<\/p>\n
The lumpsum freight rates for tankers carrying crude from Russia’s Far East port Kozmino, a major ESPO export hub, to northern China fell to $2.2 million after hitting an all-time high of $2.4 million in mid-March, Simpson Spence Young data on Refinitiv Eikon showed.<\/p>\n
The rise in Russian supplies comes ahead of a meeting between OPEC and their allies including Russia on June 4.<\/p>\n
Producers face some pressure to act to support Brent futures which have fallen 5% this week to about $73 a barrel despite an OPEC+ pledge in April to cut more output from May.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
India and China’s purchases of Russian crude oil in May are seen to have breached all-time highs. As buyers including these two big economies gorged on discounted supplies from Russia, it led to a fall in demand for oil from the Middle East and Africa, news agency Reuters reported citing shiptracking data. China, world’s No. 1 crude importer, India (world No. 3) are top buyers of Russian oil. In May, these two imported about 110 million barrels in May from Russia. This was a nearly 10% jump month on month and came despite American warnings against price cap evasion. Arrivals […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[133],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-581223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-oil-gas"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/581223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=581223"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/581223\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=581223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=581223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=581223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}