[SINGAPORE] Some of China’s largest ports have received Iranian crude this year, supporting a multi-billion oil trade and highlighting a significant gap in US efforts to curb funds for Tehran’s military and to uphold existing sanctions.
From January to June, terminals in the port clusters around Qingdao, Dalian and Zhoushan – major import points that take industrial metals, agricultural and consumer goods, as well as oil – have helped China purchase almost 1.4 million barrels a day of Iranian crude, according to data analytics firm Kpler.
In June alone, ports located around Qingdao received as much as 15.5 million barrels of Iranian crude, Kpler data show, equivalent to close to US$1 billion at current prices for the discounted oil, with sanctioned tankers used in different legs of the journey from the Persian Gulf to China.
The same pattern was repeated elsewhere along China’s eastern coast, with ports such as Dongjiakou and Lanqiao also taking Iranian cargoes.
Though China does not officially recognise US sanctions and defends its right to trade with Iran, large companies with ties to international markets have typically been extremely conservative when it comes to dealing with Tehran and especially with sanctioned counterparts. They fear the prospect of getting tangled in Washington’s enforcement efforts and being cut out of international markets.
Earlier this year, ports in Shandong were urged by their parent company to keep sanctioned tankers away from their terminals.
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The continued use of large ports reflects China’s pragmatic reading of mixed messages from the Trump administration, which has promised “maximum pressure” and bombed nuclear sites, only for the US president to write days later on social media that China “can continue to purchase oil from Iran”.
While Washington has rolled out several rounds of restrictions on Chinese entities seen to be aiding the flows, the US Treasury Department has mainly focused its efforts on tankers and steered clear of bigger ports and refineries.
To date, only one port terminal in Shandong’s Dongying region has been blacklisted for receiving Iranian shipments, a move that was interpreted by traders as a deliberate signal meant to avoid collateral damage across other sectors.
The resilience of the flows also reflects China’s continued need for the discounted barrels, used by a vast private refining industry that has struggled with paper-thin margins as the economy cools.
Officially, according to Chinese customs data, the country has not imported a single barrel of Iranian crude since mid-2022. But oil that loads at Iranian ports typically makes its way from the Persian Gulf to the waters off Malaysia or to another transfer point, where it is moved from one tanker to another at sea.
US-sanctioned vessels are often used on the Iran-to-Malaysia leg of the journey, before transfers are made to other ships, often from the so-called dark fleet, for the remainder of their journey to China. BLOOMBERG
