For most of last year, Saudi Arabia—the largest oil exporter in the world—and its key partner in the OPEC+ deal, Russia, were head-to-head in a very close race for the top spot as the biggest crude oil supplier to China. In the end, Saudi Arabia edged past Russia, shipping on average 1.69 million barrels per day (bpd) of oil to China, according to data from China’s General Administration of Customs cited by Reuters . Saudi oil exports to China grew by 1.9 percent year over year in 2020. Russia’s exports saw larger growth last year than the rise in Saudi exports, 7.6 percent compared to 2019. Yet, the total average volume of Russian oil sales to China stood at 1.67 million bpd, just around 20,000 bpd on average lower than the Saudi shipments, according to Reuters estimates of the Chinese customs data in tons. This means that Saudi Arabia […]