Top 10 China's Crude Oil Suppliers: Saudi Arabia Leads

China is the world's leading industrial power with a massive demand for oil resources.

The portion produced domestically is insufficient to meet the growing demand, and a significant amount of oil resources still needs to be imported.

According to data released by the General Administration of Customs, China's total crude oil imports in 2022 reached 508 million tons, with a dependency rate on foreign oil still above 70%.

The volume of crude oil imports decreased by nearly 1%.

However, due to the significant rise in international oil prices last year, the total amount paid for imported oil (2.43 trillion yuan) saw an increase of over 40% year-on-year.

Here is the list of China's top ten crude oil suppliers.

According to the data, Saudi Arabia is China's largest oil supplier.

In 2022, China imported 87.48 million tons from Saudi Arabia, accounting for 17.22% of China's total imported oil, with a total value of 432.3 billion yuan.

Saudi Arabia is the world's largest oil exporter, with oil and gas resources as the backbone of its economy.

The globally renowned Saudi Aramco comes from Saudi Arabia and is the world's largest oil company.

Due to the continuous rise in international oil prices last year, its performance increased significantly, with an estimated annual profit exceeding 100 billion US dollars.

Saudi Arabia is China's largest trading partner in the Middle East, and China is also Saudi Arabia's largest oil export market.

Since last year, China and Saudi Arabia have reached multiple cooperations in the field of energy trade, and it is expected that in the future, oil imports will be settled in RMB.

Russia is China's second-largest oil supplier.

Last year, China imported 86.24 million tons of crude oil from Russia.

It should be noted that from 2016 to 2018, Russia was once China's largest oil supplier before being overtaken by Saudi Arabia.

In fact, China-Russia trade has a high degree of complementarity.

Russia has abundant oil and gas resources and is a major exporter of these commodities, but it lacks in light industry.

On the other hand, China has developed rapidly with a large industrial scale and a huge demand for oil and gas resources.

Moreover, China's light industry is well-developed and can export a variety of light industrial products and mechanical and electrical products to Russia.

The main imports from Russia are energy products, such as oil, natural gas, and coal, and many well-known Chinese brands have performed well in the Russian market.

In 2022, China's top ten crude oil suppliers were: Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Malaysia, Kuwait, Angola, Brazil, and Colombia.

Among them, China imported 55.48 million tons of oil from Iraq last year, making Iraq China's third-largest oil supplier.

On February 22, the Central Bank of Iraq stated that it plans to settle trade directly with China in RMB, which implies that China is not far from the significant moment of settling oil imports in RMB.

Additionally, China also imports oil from the United States.

In 2022, China imported 7.89 million tons of oil from the US, ranking 11th and falling out of the top ten.

The US also has abundant oil and gas resources.

Last year, due to Russia no longer exporting energy to Europe, the US took the opportunity to export oil and other energy to Europe, making a fortune due to the price increase.

It should be noted that last year, China's oil imports from Iran were only 780,000 tons, dropping to 27th place.

Iran was once among China's top ten crude oil suppliers, but imports have plummeted since 2020.

Looking at the average price, the average selling price of oil imported from Saudi Arabia is 4,941 yuan per ton, while the average price for oil imported from Russia is 4,514 yuan per ton, which is cheaper.

Therefore, China's oil imports from Russia increased significantly last year.

Considering various factors, the trade volume between China and Russia is expected to continue growing rapidly in the future.