China has emerged as a “winner” with regard to oil sales. The country has been “aggressively” selling its reserve oil to a world experiencing a shortage and sky-high prices thanks to the United States and Israel’s war with Iran.
China had accumulated a cool 1.5 billion barrels in its strategic petroleum reserve with a goal to become the world’s largest strategic petroleum reserve when the time arises. That time looks like it could be now.
U.S. Begins Blockade of Strait of Hormuz
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“What has been happening in the last two or three weeks is actually they have been aggressively selling crude oil,” Mercuria CEO Marco Dunand said at the FT Commodities Global Summit in Lausanne on Tuesday. “They’ve taken out a lot of demand from various countries and offered aggressively in tenders.”
China has been capitalizing on this energy crisis as it releases its reserve barrels of oil to its mainland, and it continues the sale of Iranian oil.
But the most important thing Dunand said was his response to the question of how long this lasts: “How long can they do this for? I think the guess would be probably for about another three weeks, and then I think at that point they would have to revise their position.”
With a temporary extension of the ceasefire (which Iran claims the U.S. and Israel have both violated), the end of the larger chunk of the oil crisis could be in sight.
ZeroHedge says that Iran has three weeks until its oil sector is permanently shut in.
Reuters reported that brent crude futures were volatile, settling up about 3% on Tuesday and then climbing further to rise more than 5% to a session high of $101.15 after reports that U.S. Vice President JD Vance had called off his trip to Islamabad for peace talks with Iran.
Vance Fails In Iran: No Peace Deal