China, India boost purchases of Russian oil; West imports from countries "friendly" to Moscow

In May 2023, China's crude oil imports from Russia reached their highest level since Moscow's special military campaign in Ukraine broke out (February 2022).

Các bồn chứa dầu và khí đốt tại một kho dầu ở thành phố Châu Hải, Trung Quốc

China and India are buying Russian oil. Image of oil and gas tanks at an oil depot in Zhuhai, China. (Source: Reuters)

Official data released by China Customs on June 20 showed that the country imported 9.71 million tons of oil from Russia in May 2023, up from 5.4 million tons in February 2022 and 6.3 million tons in March 2022.

Thus, the amount of crude oil Beijing imports from Moscow has nearly doubled since Russia launched a special military campaign in Ukraine.

In addition, trade between the two sides also increased to the highest level since February 2022.

According to Chinese data, trade turnover between the two countries in May 2023 reached 20.5 billion USD, of which China's import turnover from Russia reached 11.3 billion USD.

* On the Russian side, according to data from Bloomberg , the country's refineries produced 5.49 million barrels of oil per day in the week from June 8 to 14, the highest level in the last two months. This level is nearly 200,000 barrels per day higher than the previous week.

Commenting on the above results, Mr. Viktor Katona, oil analyst at the Kpler analysis company, said that Moscow is restoring daily production after the maintenance period of the factories has passed.

Recently, India has continued to increase its purchases of Russian oil, with production increasing by 1,500% in May 2023 to 2.15 million barrels.

According to Nikkei Asia , Western countries have spent a total of 42 billion USD to buy oil products of Russian origin from countries "friendly" to Moscow, of which India is the leading country.

Source