New refinery start-ups in China are helping to absorb some of the crude oil from the Middle East amid an otherwise depressed market with stalled demand recovery. Large private Chinese refiner Zhejiang Petrochemical has been buying millions of barrels of crude from the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Iraq in recent days, for delivery in December and January, oil traders told Reuters and Bloomberg. Rongsheng Petrochemical, the trading arm of Zhejiang Petrochemical, has bought at least 5 million barrels of UAE’s Upper Zakum crude and Qatar’s al-Shaheen crude in a tender this week, trading sources told Reuters . According to traders who spoke to Bloomberg , Rongsheng Petrochemical has purchased at least 7 million barrels of crude from the Middle East. The company was looking to procure oil from the Middle East as it prepares to begin trial runs at a new refinery by the end of this year, […]