China joins Saudi’s major oil buyers, as U.S drops import

*Crude oil cargo vessel.

OpeOluwani Akintayo

Lagos — China has joined other major buyers of crude oil from Saudi Arabia, as oil tanker tracker chart, shows a sudden spike in its crude oil order from the Kingdom.

As at August last year, China’s order rested on 921,811 barrels per day, however, just one year later, the Asian country’s order hit 1,802,788 barrels per day in August, data sourced from TankerTrackers.com has shown.

During the same period, however, the U.S took in lesser crude oil from Saudi Arabia, going from 687,946 barrels per day last August, to 262,053 barrels per day.

ClipperData’s figures also showed U.S. imports from Saudi drop by 60 percent in July.

The U.S currently brides itself in shale oil boom which spurred its reputation as if not the largest producers in the world, to one of the largest producers, with over 3 million barrels output per day.

On the other hand, due to sanctions on Iran by the U.S, China which used to be a major buyer from Iran, was forced to turn to Saudi Arabia.

China is the world’s largest crude oil buyer and recently launched two new refineries to grow its refining capacity by 800, 000 barrels per day.

Saudi Arabia on its part is also looking to owing more stake in refining as it plans to acquire a 20 percent share in Indian refining and petrochemicals company, Reliance. The country also has a refinery, Motiva in Texas.