China crude oil imports are likely weaker than data suggests: Russell

China crude oil imports are likely weaker than data suggests: Russell

It's no secret the intake over May to September, China's five strongest-ever months of crude imports, was the result of a massive volume of oil bought by refiners during a brief price war in April between top exporters Saudi Arabia and Russia.What took somewhat longer to resolve was the queue of tankers outside China's ports waiting to discharge all the crude bought as benchmark Brent crude futures dropped to their lowest in 17 years.It's this line of vessels that made October's decline from September seem less than what it was, with last month's import volumes sustained by barrels that had been parked offshore for weeks, and in some cases months, waiting to offload.About 2.5 million tonnes of crude, or 588,000 bpd, that had been waiting offshore was unloaded in October,