The recent turnaround in oil market sentiment was to a large extent due to China showing signs of demand recovering back to normalcy. May 2020 witnessed the highest-ever level of crude imports, soaring almost 20% month-on-month to 11.34mbpd. Yet the intense market activity that both China’s state-owned giants and teapot refiners have demonstrated throughout April-May seems to be fizzling out. Amid tankers piling up in front of Chinese ports buying interest has significantly weakened in June and July, implying that the spring purchase frenzy was primarily driven by unprecedentedly low crude prices and it will take several months until China’s refineries can fully digest the barrels in stock. Taking a rather straightforward look at main sources of Chinese imports we shall see that a weaker summer buying season seems almost unavoidable. 1. West Africa is Going Down If one is to look at exports from W-African countries to China […]