Saudi Arabia surged past Russia to become China’s top crude supplier in February, the first time in two years this has been the case. China took 1.552mn b/d from Saudi Arabia in February, the third highest figure on record. All three of these figures have come in the past four months – including December’s record 1.641mn b/d (see chart).
On an annual basis Russia has been ahead of Saudi Arabia for each of the past three years (MEES, 25 January 2019). But for 2019 Saudi Arabia has thrown down the gauntlet with plans to massively increase supplies to the Middle Kingdom (MEES, 1 March 2019). This will almost certainly see China overtake Japan as Saudi Arabia’s number one customer for 2019 given that Saudi Arabia’s overall crude exports are set to fall this year (MEES, 22 March 2019). Japan took just 1.151mn b/d from Saudi in February, some 400,000 b/d less than China. (CONTINUED - 514 WORDS)
