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Xinyi Wu

While new sanctions from the United States threaten to choke Tehran’s oil exports, analysts say the measures might not do much to stop China, Iran’s largest buyer, from continuing to buy Iranian crude, though the naval blockade has limited its flow.
Washington has targeted shipping, alongside four other sectors, under its “economic D-Day” campaign against Iran, aiming to disrupt the Middle Eastern country’s crude revenue. Most of exported Iranian oil flows to independent Chinese refiners located in eastern Shandong province, known colloquially as teapots.
“Beijing has made clear … that China continues to defend its ties with Iran, suggesting that the Chinese government does not plan to direct teapots and financial institutions to cut off the Iranian oil trade,” said Xu Muyu, a crude oil analyst at trade-intelligence firm Kpler.
She added if Washington introduced further punitive measures targeting major Chinese entities, this might change Beijing’s stance, but doing so would risk escalating tensions ahead of a planned summit between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping next month.
Chim Lee, a senior analyst at the Economist Intelligence Unit, noted that Washington was likely to prioritise stability and refrain from crossing potential red lines for Beijing, including avoiding blacklisting major Chinese firms from the US financial system.
The US has so far refrained from targeting Chinese financial institutions that are facilitating the Iranian oil trade. However, when asked about non-compliant Chinese banks and shipping firms, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent warned that “no one is above the reach of US sanctions”.
China’s foreign affairs ministry on Tuesday called the US measures “illegal” and “unilateral”, and vowed to safeguard its own interests. It added that China’s cooperation with Iran was conducted within the framework of international law and “should not be interfered with or undermined”.
There is currently limited Iranian crude available for sale, Xu noted, and no laden Iranian tankers had managed to break through the US blockade as of last week.
“That already partially achieves Washington’s goal of exerting economic pressure on Tehran,” Xu said.

Chinese imports of Iranian crude currently stand at around 800,000 barrels per day, down from 1.3 million barrels per day in May, according to Kpler data.
The decrease was partly due to rounds of US blockades, and partly due to data delays caused by the increasing difficulty of tracking Iranian tankers, Xu said, meaning the numbers were harder to verify.
Traffic through the Strait of Hormuz is back at a near standstill as the war nears its six-month mark. No vessels exited the waterway on Monday, according to the market intelligence firm Argus Media.
While authorities in Iran and Oman have outlined a plan for a temporary shipping route through the strait, Tehran has said that the waterway would remain closed until Washington followed through with its previous commitments, including lifting the naval blockade.
The prolonged disruption of the Strait of Hormuz, a vital shipping lane for both oil and gas, threatens to tighten energy supplies for some countries in the coming months as winter nears.
Europe, for instance, would find it difficult to manage natural gas storage through the winter if exports from the Gulf remain constrained, and if prices did not rise enough to discourage competition from Asian demand, analysts from Goldman Sachs wrote in a note on Sunday.
Under Kpler’s assumptions that the US and Iran would not see a resolution to the crisis this year and that China’s crude buying would not return to pre-war levels, the global average crude deficit would stand at around 1.4 million barrels per day in the fourth quarter, Xu said.


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As northern hemisphere prepares for winter, analysts say latest US sanctions would not deter China from purchasing Iranian oil


As northern hemisphere prepares for winter, analysts say latest US sanctions would not deter China from purchasing Iranian oil.


As US threatens ‘D-Day’ for Iranian economy, how will China’s oil supply be affected?

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}As northern hemisphere prepares for winter, analysts say latest US sanctions would not deter China from purchasing Iranian oil

As northern hemisphere prepares for winter, analysts say latest US sanctions would not deter China from purchasing Iranian oil