Washington: Millions of barrels of oil supplied by Iran has been stored in oil depots by China. A leading US news agency claimed that China is bypassing the US sanctions by refusing to channelize this oil in the domestic market. As per the news agency, the Chinese plan to bring that oil in the market in future, once the United States relaxes sanctions against Iran.
The United States started imposition of harsh sanctions against Iran since the last year. These also include sanctions against Iranian oil exports. China and the other big buyers of oil from Iran were affected severely because of these sanctions. Most of the other countries stopped their oil transactions with Iran, respecting the US sanctions, and some drastically reduced the quantum of oil transactions. But despite the US sanctions, China has continued to purchase oil from Iran.
As per the US news agency, Bloomberg, 12 million barrels of crude oil has been delivered to China between January and May this year. But China announced that only 10 million barrels were for actual use. The numbers for June and July have not been revealed, so far. The news agency claimed that looking at the sheer number of oil tankers reaching China, there can be millions of barrels of surplus oil with China, in the storages.
The United States has not imposed any sanctions against countries storing Iranian oil. Taking advantage of this fact, China has stored the Iranian oil instead of releasing it in the local market. Therefore, the news agency claimed, China has been prosperous in bypassing the US sanctions to a certain extent. Singapore based analyst Rachel Yeoh said that China is confident that the United States will not hold the sanctions against Iran for a long time and will relax them soon.
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