While the world scrambles for oil, China sits on full tanks
Sign up now: Get insights on Asia's fast-moving developments
A tanker unloading imported crude oil at a terminal port in Qingdao, in China’s eastern Shandong province, on May 14.
PHOTO: AFP
Keith Bradsher
BEIJING – While the US and Iran haggle over reopening the Strait of Hormuz and restoring oil exports from the Persian Gulf, China, the world’s largest oil importer, is not expected to quickly ramp up purchases from the region.
If normal traffic through the strait fully resumes in the coming weeks, numerous tankers carrying oil bound for China that have been stranded in the Persian Gulf during the war would be on the move again.
