Bloomberg: China Buys Iranian Oil as Omani and Malaysian Oil at Discount Prices

Bloomberg News agency reports that China purchases Iranian oil at 10 percent below market prices. The news agency also stated that imports of crude oil from Iran and Venezuela to China doubled in 2021.

The Bloomberg economic news agency reports that Iranian oil, which has been sanctioned by the United States, is being purchased by Chinese refineries under the names of Omani and Malaysian oil.

The news agency reported that China’s imports of crude oil from Iran and Venezuela in 2021 increased twofold, and the Chinese are buying Iranian oil at 10 percent cheaper than market prices.

Previously, Reuters and several other reputable media outlets and international companies had repeatedly reported that the Islamic Republic of Iran had been shipping a large portion of its oil to China through intermediaries and under the names of Omani, Iraqi, Emirati, Indonesian, and Malaysian oil.

According to Bloomberg’s report, Chinese refineries have accepted the risk of punishment for violating U.S. sanctions against Iran and, by altering ownership documents, imported Iranian and Venezuelan oil into their country at a discount.

According to data from the company “Kpler,” China imported a total of 324 million barrels of oil from Iran and Venezuela in 2021, which was 53 percent more than in 2020.

Bloomberg also pointed out in its report that China continued to purchase oil from Iran during the sanctions period, but information regarding oil shipments was not shown in China’s official customs system.

Based on China’s official customs statistics, the country received approximately 80,000 barrels of oil per day from Iran in 2020. However, according to statistics from the oil tanker tracking company (Tanker Trackers), the actual volume of Iranian oil exports to China in the same year was 320,000 barrels per day.