Delivery of Saudi Arabia’s crude oil to its largest customer, China, is expected to go down to the lowest level in more than a year in April, the source of trade said on Thursday, in part because of the maintenance program at the Chinese refinery owned by Sinopec.
OPEC producers allocated 34 million barrels of Saudi oil in April for Chinese customers, down from 41 million barrels in the previous month, Reuters data showed.
The decline in China’s demand for Saudi oil came even though the organizations of their petroleum exporting countries and their allies, a group known as OPEC+, agreed to continue their plans to increase production in April.
Sinopec 600028 plans to close at least 700,000 barrels per day (BPD) of rough processing capacity from mid -March to May in subsidiaries including Yangzi, Jiujiang and Gaoqiao refineries, according to data collected by Reuters based on industrial and trade sources.
Saudi Aramco and Sinopec did not immediately respond to requests for comments.
The crude oil market in Asia also stabilized after US sanctions against Russia and Iranian oil interfere with trade at the end of 2024 and early 2025.
Imports of Long Eastern Russian crude oil and Iranian oil will recover in March as an unrepened tanker, withdrawn by profitable results, joining trading that replaces ships under the US embargo, trading sources and analysts said.
Russian oil supply to India, the third largest oil importer in the world, has also recovered this month.
Source: Reuters
