Back in June, we reported that China had begun ramping up imports of U.S. LNG ostensibly in a bid to fulfill the January trade agreement with Washington and possibly avert another full-blown trade war. According to Wood Mackenzie via NGI, China took in 10 LNG cargoes from U.S. suppliers between April and May at the expense of its traditional suppliers, including Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. But it’s now emerging that the LNG purchases could have been a mere smokescreen. Reuters has reported that China’s imports of U.S. energy products, including crude oil, liquefied natural gas (LNG), and metallurgical coal, clocked in at just $1.29B through June, or a mere 5% of the $25.3B energy target. The deal committed Beijing to purchase an extra $52.4 billion of U.S. energy supplies over the next two years from a baseline of just $9.1 billion in 2017. The deal requires China to import an […]