RIYAD: Saudi Arabia’s crude oil exports en route to China in December were 20 percent lower compared to November, which would be the lowest level of Saudi crude sales to China in 2017, early Bloomberg tanker tracking data showed on Wednesday.
According to the tanker tracking figures, less than 3.5 million tons of crude oil, or 25.6 million barrels of oil, left Saudi Arabia en route to Chinese ports in December.
The route takes around 20 days to complete, and China will publish its December country-by-country crude oil imports data around January 22, which would confirm whether the Saudis had in fact drastically cut crude shipments to China last month. For December, the Saudis had cut total crude oil exports by 120,000 bpd from just above 7 million bpd in November, reducing shipments to all regions, including a 10-percent reduction of oil exports to the U.S. Saudi Arabia will cut crude oil exports to Asia by more than 100,000 bpd in January compared to December, while keeping its shipments to Europe and the U.S. at the December levels, the Saudi Energy Ministry said at the beginning of December.
