China’s crude oil imports in May jumped to the highest in history ever, at 11.34 million bpd, customs data showed , confirming an earlier report by analytics firm OilX, which had calculated China’s May imports at 11.11 million bpd. The data also confirms that China’s economy is on the fast track to recovery from the coronavirus crisis, with the May daily average of oil imports up by 15 percent from April and 150,000 bpd more than the previous import record that Chinese buyers set last November. Among the reasons for the substantial jump in oil imports are bargain-hunting while oil is still cheap, but also developments on the futures market: since April, Chinese hedge funds have been betting big on an oil price recovery on the Shanghai crude futures, which has led to major Chinese state oil firms, including PetroChina and Sinopec, delivering oil into the crude oil futures […]