This month alone, China could import between 867,000 (barrels per day) bpd, according to Reuters’ Refinitiv data, and 900,000 bpd, according to oilfield services company Canary. And then the flow of US oil into China will decline, and it will decline sharply, Reuters’ Clyde Russell wrote this week. The reason as simple as it is worrying. The US crude that has been going into China since July—and reaching major records in terms of volume, with the July daily average alone up 139 percent on the year—was bought much earlier, in April, May, and June. This was oil bought when West Texas Intermediate was trading at multi-year lows. By June it had recovered to about $40, Russell notes, so purchases since then have been more modest.

But here is the worrying part: much of the oil price recovery we’ve seen since this spring was caused by rising Chinese imports, including from the United States. Rising imports are traditionally taken to mean improving demand, but this time this has not been the case entirely. Chinese refiners have been stocking up on crude more because of the historically low prices than to satisfy growing demand.

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In all fairness, oil demand has been seen as recovering pretty faster after the end of the lockdowns there but since China is not an isolated economy, its refining industry needs a recovery elsewhere in Asia and globally, and this has been slow in coming. Now, none other than OPEC is warning that a second wave of Covid-19 infections—already visible in parts of Europe, for example—will further slow down demand recovery, which will unavoidably affect Chinese oil imports.

According to Canary CEO Dave Eberhart, however, China will continue buying a lot of US oil ahead of the US elections. Beijing, Eberhart wrote for Forbes, would want to stay on Trump’s good side as much as possible in case he wins a second term. Reuters’ Russell is of a different opinion: he cites preliminary import estimates that point to a sharp decline in October to 500,000 bpd of US oil flowing into China and a further decline in November. For Russell, it’s all about the price. For Eberhart, it’s also about politics and the trade war.

“While importing US crude often doesn’t make commercial sense for China’s refiners, Beijing has directed them to continue buying as the election approaches—a sign that China knows that the trade issue with Trump will only intensify if the president wins a second term,” Eberhart wrote.

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Yet not everyone agrees that politics will trump the economy. In fact, data from Chinese market research firms suggests private refiners, if not the state giants, may sharply cut their intake of foreign oil this month and next. After all, storage space is finite and Chinese energy companies have been filling it up for months now while demand has been improving but is yet to return to growth mode, even in China with its rebounding economy.

It looks like the dominant opinion is for a decline in Chinese oil imports, from the US and elsewhere, in the coming months, not least because of lower refinery run rates. Reuters reported earlier this week refinery runs are set to be cut by 5-10 percent beginning this month because of a crude oil glut and weak fuel export margins. This would mean more pressure on prices. And this is not all. Some analysts expect that China may start selling the oil it bought on the cheap in the spring. Now that would be really bad news for oil prices.

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

Referring to US interference in Syria, he added, “The US is an uninvited intruder in the region and in Syria that has done nothing but increase insecurity and impose more suffering on the Syrian people by supporting Islamist militant groups and imposing sanctions.”

“The US and its allies have openly supported extremist groups in Syria, from al-Nusra to Ahrar al-Sham and other terrorist groups for years, and most recently, imposed new sanctions, called ‘Caesar’, on the war-weary Syrian people,” Miryousefi said.

“These acts undermine the US crocodile tears for the Syrian people,” he noted.

“Iran and Syria have been strategic partners for more than four decades and this alliance has been the main obstacle to foreign aggression in the region. Iran proudly continues its help for the Syrian government in order to maintain its territorial integrity and protect its people from terrorist groups,” Miryousefi maintained.

Moscow and Damascus issued a statement last Thursday stressing that the US military presence in Syria would escalate tensions in the country.

He also condemned the US’ interferences in the world countries’ affairs via force, weapons, and espionage.

Addressing the American officials, the Hezbollah secretary-general said, “Why do you hold the right to interfere in the affairs of countries and initiate a war, but we and others do not have the right to extend a helping hand to the countries whose rights have been violated?”

In another speech on Thursday night, Nasrallah referred to the institutionalized savagery and discrimination in the US, saying that “due to these facts we cannot expect the US to respect human rights and give us human rights lessons.”

“The participants of the JCPOA and the vast majority of the UN Security Council members do not believe that the US request has any legal grounds and that the ‘snapback’ mechanism should be activated,” he said.

Zhao cited this as evidence that the position of the US is deeply unpopular, especially given that Washington “has broken its promises” by ditching the JCPOA.

“This fully shows that the unilateral position of the United States runs contrary to the broad consensus of the international community. The US’ attempt to undermine the JCPOA will not succeed,” he said.

On Thursday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo wrote a letter to the Security Council urging it to reinstate the sanctions on Tehran, which were lifted in accordance with the JCPOA. However, even the US’ European allies, including the UK, France, and Germany, did not support this move.

Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said that the US initiatives to renew the UN Security Council’s resolutions on sanctions against Iran lack a legal basis and will inevitably fail.

Sending a letter to the chairman of the UN Security Council on Thursday, Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif blasted the US’ illegal attempts to snapback sanctions on Iran, reiterating that the US has no right to reapply provisions of terminated resolutions.

The United States had reported 177,426 deaths as of Thursday night while the figure for those diagnosed with the coronavirus rose to 5,746,534.

The coronavirus death toll in Brazil has reached 112,423 from more than 3,505,097 coronavirus cases, according to the latest reports.

The COVID-19 death toll in India surged to 55,002, and the number of confirmed cases rose to 2,910,032.

The total number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Russia has reached 946,976, with a total death toll of 16,189.

It is followed by South Africa (599,940), Peru (567,059), Mexico (543,806), Colombia (513,719), Spain (404,229) and Chile (391,849) in terms of infection.

Iran is the next severely-hit country with 352,558 positive cases and death toll of 20,264.

Of course, the people of the Arab world must be considered separately from their governors; because many of them are among the freedom seekers in the region and even they have declared their opposition to this shameful agreement, Jalal Zadeh added.

He went on to say that as the Americans have always been making every effort to mend the relations of the compromiser countries with the Zionist regime, therefore the UAE’s agreement with the Zionist regime is the result of Americans efforts.

With this action, the UAE registered its name among the compromiser countries, he said, adding “And Saudi Arabia is also the fourth side of the United States, the Zionist regime and the UAE, but for some reason, it does not want to make this issue public and announce that it has crossed the red lines, but everyone knows Saudi Arabia is also behind this.