Recently, Jin Lianchuang released news that according to customs statistics, China imported about 84.92 million tons of crude oil from Saudi Arabia last year, up 1.9% over the same period of last year, slightly surpassing Russia and retaining the title of China's largest oil importer.Saudi Arabia's supply in December was 6.94 million tons, down 0.8% year on year.Russia's supply was 6.2 million tons, down 15.7 percent year on year.
Saudi Arabia's crude oil exports to China surged 47 percent in 2020 to an average of 1.67 million barrels a day, overtaking Russia as China's largest crude supplier four years later.According to Jin Lianchuang, the top 10 importers of Chinese crude oil last year were Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iraq, Brazil, Angola, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, the United States and Norway.China imported about 542.4 million tons of crude oil last year, up 7.3% from the previous year, according to Chinese customs data.By that measure, Saudi oil imports accounted for 15.7 per cent of China's total imports last year.
Russia, the second largest exporter, exported about 83.57 million tons of crude oil to China in 2020, about 1.67 million b/d, a year-on-year increase of 7.6%.In terms of growth, Russia's crude exports to China rose more than Saudi Arabia's last year.Han Zhengji, an analyst at Jinliangchuang, said that compared with Saudi Arabia, Russia's more sensitive logistics and astronomical proximity to Chinese refineries provided favorable conditions for its crude oil exports to China.Iraq is China's third largest crude oil supplier, with oil exports to China up 16.1 percent year-on-year to 60.12 million tons.
The South Korean government has identified Iraq as one of the main beneficiaries of US sanctions, which have severely affected oil exports from Iran and Venezuela.Moreover, thanks to lower prices and aggressive marketing of independent Chinese refiners, Brazil has expanded oil exports to China, overtaking Angola as the country's fourth-largest supplier last year.Brazil's oil exports to China rose 5.1 percent to 42.19 million tons in 2020.
In 2020, China's imports of crude oil from the United States reached 19.76 million tons, or about 394,000 barrels per day, more than doubling year-on-year.The United States is China's ninth largest importer of crude oil.Global oil demand fell sharply last year as a result of the outbreak.According to OPEC's Monthly Oil Market Bulletin, published on January 14, 2021, world oil demand last year totaled 9001,000,000 b/d, a decline of 9.78% year on year.
The price of international crude oil has thus fallen sharply, once falling to negative oil prices.As the world's largest importer of crude oil, it is inevitable that China will import more crude oil."Crude oil imports have also been growing steadily as China opens its economy wider to the outside world and demands for economic development."China's crude oil imports are likely to maintain a steady growth in 2021, Han said.
Han Zhengji analysis, the current market for the prevention and control of the new crown epidemic has a relatively rich experience, combined with the domestic epidemic is relatively light, the impact on the economy is small, it is expected that the demand for crude oil will not appear significant decline.Given that crude oil prices have rebounded from the low point and the cost of crude oil imports will increase to a certain extent, it is expected that China's crude oil imports will increase while remaining stable in 2021.
