A combination of China’s policies to curb pollution in time for the Winter Olympics, its crackdown on illegal practices at independent refiners, and its zero-COVID policy with intermittent lockdowns are set to slow crude oil imports at the world’s top oil-importing nation early next year, industry consultants tell Bloomberg . Chinese imports in March 2022 are set to be around 10.7 million barrels per day (bpd). This would be about 1 million bpd lower than the crude oil imports in March this year, according to estimates from consultants FGE cited by Bloomberg. In the coming weeks, China’s independent refiners, commonly known as teapots, will likely see lower purchases as the local government is investigating practices at the refineries in the Shandong province. As a whole, Asian refiners, including those in China, are not rushing to buy too much crude in the coming months. Higher Saudi prices for January, lower […]