By Bloomberg News
China imported a record
volume of Iranian oil last month as its condensate demand increased and
as the Persian Gulf nation sought to boost crude exports.
China, the
world’s second-largest oil consumer, bought 3.29 million metric tons of Iranian
suppliesin April, or about 804,000 barrels a day, data from the General
Administration of Customs in Beijing showed today. That’s almost 40 percent
more than in March and the most since Jan. 2004 when Bloomberg started
compiling the data. Imports averaged 1.79 million tons a month last year.
Purchases have
risen on an estimated 4 million tons of annual incremental demand from a
petrochemicals producer in southern China and Iran’s push to sell more oil,
according to ICIS-C1, a commodities researcher based in Shanghai. Dragon
Aromatics in Zhangzhou city started a
long-term contract in June to buy Iranian condensate, including from the South
Pars field, to add to feedstock to its naphtha cracking unit, Amy Sun, an
ICIS-C1 analyst in Guangzhou, said by phone today.
China Petroleum
& Chemical Corp., Asia’s biggest refiner, and
plants owned by China
North Industries Group, a military weapons
manufacturer, are the country’s leading buyers of Iranian crude, according to
Sun.
Iran will ship
crude at the maximum level possible regardless of restrictions imposed in an
interim deal with world powers that offered relief from sanctions over its
nuclear program, Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh said on May 9.
The nation, a
member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, should limit
exports to an average of 1 million barrels a day in the six months through
July, the U.S. said in November. Iran wants to pump an additional 1 million a
day within four years from oil fields shared with neighbors,
according to Zanganeh.
Bloomberg
News
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