China's Independent Refiners Boost Crude Buying After New Import Quotas

Helped by the newly-issued crude import quotas, China’s independent refiners are buying sanctioned Iranian crude again and raising their processing rates, making room for Iran’s oil to move out of floating and bonded storage and potentially easing the year-end glut on the market.  The independent refiners in China’s Shandong province, the so-called teapots, have been buying cheap Iranian oil from onshore storage in China, including bonded storage, since the Chinese authorities issued a fresh batch of import quotas last week. …