China imported around 800,000 bpd of crude from Iran in April—the highest amount that Iran’s top oil customer purchased since August last year—as Chinese refiners rushed to buy Iranian oil ahead of the expiry of the U.S. sanction waiver at the beginning of May, Reuters reported on Wednesday, citing ship tracking data from Refinitiv. The United States ended the sanction waivers for all Iranian customers in a move that caught the oil market off guard as analysts were widely expecting that the Trump Administration would extend at least some of the waivers in order to keep oil and gasoline prices in check. Iran’s oil customers were only guessing if the United States would extend the waivers that expired last week, so all Iranian clients, including its biggest customer China, rushed in to procure cheap Iranian oil in March and April. In March, the biggest oil importers in Asia—China, India, […]