China’s oil imports from Iran increase after new quotas issued

Several refiners in Shandong province have received crude from bonded warehouses at ports and refineries this week, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be named. They said much of the oil was purchased before the new quota.
China’s private refiners, known as “T-pots,” are major customers of Iranian and Russian crude, but they were forced to cut their purchases in the fourth quarter as quotas ran out and sanctions fell. Beijing operates a quota system that controls how much oil private refiners can import.
However, overall demand from “T-pots” is likely to remain weak through the end of the year, in part due to weak refining margins, according to a report by Vertexa.
Chinese officials typically provide guidance on the overall annual quota, but do not provide details on the quotas issued throughout the year that make up the actual total. In the most recent quota, about 20 independent refiners received between seven and eight million tonnes of import quota, analysts said.