China will increasingly turn to Russian oil to meet its demand amid the withdrawal of Venezuelan oil from the market, and will increase price pressure on Moscow.

Axar.az reports that Economist Natig Jafarli said this while commenting on the impact on China of the US restricting access to Venezuelan oil.

According to the expert, China has long been purchasing Russian oil at prices significantly below market levels:

“While Brent crude is priced at $62–63 per barrel, China has been buying Russian oil at around $50. Now, taking advantage of the situation, China may exert stronger pressure on Russia and try to buy oil at even lower prices. Pipelines play a key role in delivering Russian oil to China, and these routes are effectively outside sanctions oversight. There is virtually no control over oil delivered via pipelines. As for tankers, oil continues to be transported through ‘grey ships’ that change their names and flags.”

Touching on the Iran factor, Jafarli noted that the volume of oil China imports from Iran is relatively small and cannot fully replace Venezuelan oil:

“China was importing a maximum of 350,000–400,000 barrels per day from Iran. This is not a significant amount for China to compensate for the loss. Some Chinese refineries were specifically built to process heavy Venezuelan crude and have difficulty refining lighter oil. In this context, Canadian oil has emerged as an alternative. Canada has oil with a composition similar to Venezuelan crude, and China is holding talks on this issue.

Overall, in my view, although the withdrawal of Venezuelan oil from the market creates certain challenges for China, Beijing will try to overcome them by purchasing more oil—at lower prices—from other countries, primarily Russia.”