TABNAK: Beijing bought 1.54 million barrels of oil per day from Iran in May, the highest number since October, Kpler said in a report.
Over half of the oil shipment has been sent to buyers in Qingdao, Shandong Provice, eastern China, where many independent refiners are clustered.
The refiners faced weak margin profit this year in crude output, which led to less production as well.
The refineries produce a quarter of the Asian nation’s refining capacity with gasoil is the main output.
Beijing has long said it opposes Washington's “long-arm” jurisdiction, and has urged that sanctions on Iran be dropped.
Iran is exporting about 2 million bpd of crude oil as well as condensate and products, as Tehran has boosted production to nearly 3.6 million bpd, say people familiar with the matter, or near its maximum of about 4 million bpd.
In China, traders and analysts say, Iranian oil is bought by independent refineries concentrated in the coastal province of Shandong.
Similarly, last April, Bloomberg reported that “Chinese private refineries are buying more Iranian oil despite the rising competition for supplies from Russia.”
“So-called teapots are prioritizing the flows, with Russian supplies getting more pricy as mainstream buyers such as state-owned Chinese refiners and Indian processors take a greater share,” the report read.
China is Iran’s largest trade partner. As two major countries targeted with US sanctions, Iran and China have increased their cooperation in recent years to offset the impact of the illegal bans on their economies.
The two countries signed a landmark 25-year partnership agreement in March 2021 in an attempt to strengthen their long-standing economic and political alliance.
Rapidly-growing Chinese demand for more crude is encouraging Iran to ramp up its oil production. Dozens of oil refineries in China are now purchasing oil from Iran.
Based on data and analytics gathered by the Kpler research company in Europe, some 90 percent of Iran's crude oil exports went to China.
In past years, the Islamic Republic has been working towards building its bonds with China. Iran's president and his Chinese counterpart met in Beijing last February and agreed to call for US sanctions to be lifted.
