BEIJING – Customs data issued on Wednesday showed that China’s imports of crude oil rose by 11.5% year-on-year in July. The main reason for the development was that state-owned refineries were running at full capacity, allowing the country to keep processing and exporting refined energy products.
Russia remained China’s top supplier of crude oil, with shipments rising by 16.8% from the previous year to 8.71 million metric tons, or 2.05 million barrels per day (bpd). Imports from Saudi Arabia, the second-largest source, also rose significantly, by 16.6% to 7.47 million tons.
The statistics also showed that imports from Malaysia, which is a major transshipment point for Iranian oil that is under sanctions, fell sharply. Shipments from Malaysia dropped to 4.22 million tons, down 31.9% from a year before.
For the second month in a row, China did not buy any crude oil from the United States. There were also no imports from Iran or Venezuela, both of which are under U.S. sanctions.
The report also comes at a time when the U.S. and India are in a severe trade conflict over India’s purchases of Russian oil. U.S. officials, such Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and trade adviser Peter Navarro, have said that India is “profiteering” from the situation in Ukraine by buying cheap Russian oil and then selling refined goods on the world market. The U.S. then put a 50% tax on Indian goods.
The U.S., on the other hand, has not punished China in the same way, even though the data shows that China is still Russia’s biggest oil buyer. Marco Rubio, the U.S. Secretary of State, recently defended Washington’s choice by saying that China’s purchases of Russian oil were less bad than India’s because China was already a big consumer before the 2022 invasion. Rubio also said that putting secondary penalties on China might mess up the global oil market and raise energy costs even further.
In July, Iraq (4.89 million tons), Brazil (3.78 million tons), and the UAE (2.84 million tons) were also big suppliers to China.