China's crude imports from the Middle East fall to five-month low

Oil

China's crude oil imports from the Middle East in October dropped by 471K b/d m-o-m and were essentially unchanged y-o-y at 3.17M b/d, the lowest since May, data from the country's General Administrations of Customs shows. This accounted for the majority of the 598K b/d m-o-m decline in China's overall crude imports of 6.23M b/d. Imports of West African crude were up by 59K b/d and 24K b/d to 1.09M b/d. Imports from the Caribbean and Latin America slipped by 19K b/d m-o-m but were 207K b/d higher y-o-y to 809K b/d. Notably, imports from Asia hit a 27-month high of 193K b/d, due to higher volumes from Australia and Indonesia as well as an unusual purchase of crude from South Korea.