China has never actually stopped buying crude oil from the Islamic Republic, even after the Trump Administration slapped sanctions on Iran\u2019s oil sales in 2018,<\/strong>\u00a0warning buyers to stay away from Iranian crude and risk being sanctioned and cut off from the U.S. banking system.<\/p>\n Various reports, media investigations, and tanker-tracking firms suggest that\u00a0China has been\u00a0receiving much more oil from Iran<\/a>\u00a0than the official figures report,<\/strong>\u00a0when they report imports from Iran.<\/p>\n The Islamic Republic has been using ship-to-ship transfers with transponders turned off to avoid detection, skirting U.S. sanctions.<\/p>\n Some Chinese refiners are now taking advantage of the heavily discounted Iranian crude amid surging benchmark oil prices.\u00a0<\/strong>Those buyers in China who import oil from Iran are reportedly buying the crude at a discount of $3 to $5 per barrel off the\u00a0Brent Crude<\/a>\u00a0benchmark, according to Bloomberg.<\/p>\n In addition, oil demand in China is back to pre-crisis levels, and some refiners prefer lower-priced crude when Brent is nearing the $70 per barrel threshold.<\/p>\n China\u2019s imports of crude oil from Iran in March are expected to more than double from February and reach around 856,000 barrels per day (bpd), which would be the highest estimated volume of Chinese imports of Iran\u2019s oil in nearly two years, Kevin Wright, a Singapore-based analyst at Kpler, told Bloomberg.\u00a0The estimated import level this month includes the oil that Iran is said to have transferred from ship to ship at some point along the route to hide the fact that the origin of the crude was actually Iran.<\/strong><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/zh-prod-1cc738ca-7d3b-4a72-b792-20bd8d8fa069.storage.googleapis.com\/s3fs-public\/styles\/inline_image_mobile\/public\/inline-images\/2021-03-11_i4haynvxsg.jpg?itok=5cCSD673\")
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