SINGAPORE (Reuters) -Saudi Arabia’s crude oil supply to China will hold steady in June after hitting the highest in more than a year in the previous month, trade sources said on Tuesday, following OPEC+ decision to increase output.
State oil firm Saudi Aramco will ship about 48 million barrels to China in June, a tally of allocations to Chinese refiners showed, the same as in May, which was the highest amount since at least 2024, according to Reuters data.
Aramco did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for comment on its June allocations.
Chinese state-owned refiner Sinochem and private refiners including Rongsheng Petrochemical and Hengli Petrochemical will all be lifting more Saudi crude in June, while Sinopec, CNOOC and Aramco’s joint venture Fujian refinery will be lifting less, the sources said.
Saudi Aramco slashed its prices for crude loading in May for sale to Asian refiners to close to a four-year low, coinciding with OPEC+’s decision to hike output in May and June.
Aramco last week slightly raised its crude oil prices for Asian buyers in June as expected.
Saudi Arabia is the second-largest crude supplier to China after Russia.
China imported 145.6 million barrels of crude from Saudi Arabia in the first quarter of this year, or 1.62 million barrels per day, up by 3.8% from the 1.56 million bpd in the same period a year earlier, Chinese customs data showed.
(Reporting by Florence Tan and Siyi Liu in Singapore; Editing by Louise Heavens and Christian Schmollinger)
