Reuters quoted traders as saying the increase was related to China’s increasing imports of Indonesian crude oil towards rebranded Iranian crude oil.
China has been importing an unusually large amount of oil from Indonesia, a trend traders say is a way to hide shipments of sanctioned Iranian oil transshipped off the coast of Malaysia as cargoes originating in Malaysia come under increased scrutiny.
Declaring Iranian oil as Malaysian is a long-standing tactic of traders selling to China, the biggest buyer of U.S.-sanctioned crude, market participants said, Reuters reported.
Observers see the latest figures as evidence of the Iranian government’s ability to circumvent tough sanctions.
Earlier this month, Tanker Trackers announced that crude oil exports from Iran to China hit a record high since May 2018, when the US withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal known as the JCPOA and reimposed sanctions.
“In the past four weeks, Iran has exported nearly 2.3 million barrels of oil per day, a number not seen since early 2018,” TankerTrackers, an independent online service that tracks and reports crude oil shipments in several geographic and geopolitical locations, reported in a post on its X account on November 9.
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