Kuwaiti oil exports to China stood at 287,000 tons in February

Kuwait’s crude oil exports to China stood at 287,000 tons in February, equivalent to around 75,000 barrels per day (bpd), the latest government data showed.Shipments fell 30.1 percent from a year earlier, according to data released by the General Administration of Customs.Kuwait News Agency (KUNA) said China’s overall imports of crude oil rose 10.9 percent in February on the year to 23.05 million ton (6.04 million bpd).Saudi Arabia remained China’s top supplier last month, with its shipments increasing 8.0 percent to 1.13 million bpd, followed by Angola with 974,000 bpd, up 40.7 percent. Russia became third with imports from the country jumping 34.4 percent to 713,000 bpd. Iran ranked fourth and Iraq fifth.China’s net imports of petroleum and other liquids began exceeding those of the US since last September on a monthly basis, making it the largest net importer of crude oil and other liquids in the world, the US EnergyInformation Administration (EIA) said in a report on Monday.“The rise in China’s net imports of petroleum and other liquids is driven by steady economic growth, with rapidly rising Chinese petroleum demand outpacing production growth,” the statistical agency within the Department of Energy said. The EIA also pointed out that China has been diversifying the sources of its crude oil imports in recent years as a result of robust oil demand growth and recent geopolitical uncertainties. Saudi Arabia continues to be its largest supplier of crude oil, but “because production levels from Iran, ibya, and Sudan and South Sudan dropped since 2011, China replaced the lost shares of crude oil and other liquids imports from these countries with imports from Oman, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Angola, Venezuela, and Russia,” it added.