The relationship between Australia and China has been going through a difficult period lately. Altercations surrounding the origins of COVID-19 rage on, all the while China has found ways to curb imports of Australian coal, oil and LNG to demonstrate that it would not refrain from weaponizing energy trade if it considers such steps to be necessary. Not every segment of bilateral trade was as impacted as hydrocarbons were – China was tangibly more prudent with iron ore as roughly two-thirds of its monthly needs come from Chinese companies; any replacement thereof would ramp up logistics costs and thus render the operation of steel mills less efficient. The first of the banned hydrocarbon “triad”, Australia’s LNG exports to China are bouncing back to normalcy, i.e. the period before COVID politics got involved. Graph 1. Australian LNG Imports to China in 2019-2021 (million tons LNG). Source: Thomson Reuters. The main […]