Saudi Arabia Retains Top Spot, as China’s Largest Oil Exporter

Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest oil producer-cum-exporter, kept its ranking as China’s top crude supplier, for a ninth straight month, in August, as major producers relaxed output cuts.

Saudi oil arrivals surged 53% from a year earlier to 8.06 million tons, or 1.96 million barrels per day (bpd), Chinese General Administration of Customs’ data, showed on Monday.

That compares with 1.58 million bpd, in July and 1.24 million bpd, in August last year.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and its allies best known as OPEC+, decided in July to ease production cuts and increase supply by a further 2 million bpd, adding 0.4 million bpd a month, from August until December.

In July, the output of OPEC increased by 640,000 bpd to 26.66 million bpd.

China’s crude oil imports from Russia stood at 6.53 million tons, in August, or 1.59 million bpd, almost flat against 1.56 million bpd, in July.

The big gap behind Saudi supplies was due to Beijing’s decision to slash crude oil import quotas, to its independent refiners.