Ship tracking data from Bloomberg shows that 83 supertankers carrying around 166 million barrels of oil are headed to China, which has stockpiled an impressive 787,000 barrels a day in the first quarter of 2016—the highest stockpiling rate since 2014. While the world was speculating about oil prices plunging to $20 and $10 per barrel, China was busy stockpiling its reserves. The chart below shows an increase in imports as crude prices collapsed. Since the beginning of this year, China has imported a record quantity of oil. (Click to enlarge) Back in January 2015, Reuters had reported that China planned to increase its strategic petroleum reserves (SPR) from 30 days to 90 days. In January 2016, it was revealed that China was building underground storage to complement its above-ground storage tanks. The Chinese urgency points to two things. China believes that crude oil prices will not remain at the […]