Russia beat Saudi Arabia to become China's top crude oil supplier for a sixth month in August, as independent refiners ramped up purchases and as state-owned refiners bought seaborne shipments from the Russian Far East port of Kozmino.
China's crude oil imports from Russia in August were 4.426 million tonnes, or about 1.04 million barrels per day (bpd), down 4.5 percent over the same month last year, according to a detailed breakdown of commodity trade data released on Tuesday by the General Administration of Customs. For the first eight months of 2017, Russia's volumes rose 13 percent year-on-year to 38.65 million tonnes, or 1.16 million bpd.
Supplies from Saudi Arabia last month dropped 16.2 percent from a year earlier to 3.657 million tonnes, or about 861,200 bpd, with the kingdom the third-biggest China supplier, slipping behind Angola.
Shipments from Angola last month surged nearly 28 percent from a year ago to about 983,500 bpd, the data showed.
Saudi supplies for the January-August period fell 1.7 percent on-year to 34.24 million tonnes, or 1.03 million bpd.
Reuters reported last week that Russian state oil firm Rosneft, the world's largest producer, is poised to send 50 percent more ESPO blend crude to state-run Chinese major PetroChina next year compared to 2017.
China's imports of US crude, which started last year, were about 107,620 bpd in August and totalled 5.26 million tonnes for the January to August period.
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