China's Unipec suspends US oil imports as trade spat intensifies
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/03/chinas-unipec-suspends-us-oil-imports-as-trade-spat-intensifies.htmlChina's Unipec, the trading arm of state oil major Sinopec, has suspended crude oil imports from the United States due to a growing trade spat between Washington and Beijing.
It is not clear how long the temporary halt will last, but one of the sources said Unipec has no new bookings of U.S. crude until at least October.
...Chinese buyers had already slowed their purchases of U.S. oil to avoid a likely import tariff threatened by Beijing amid the escalating trade dispute between the world's two largest economies.
Beijing has put U.S. energy products, including crude oil and refined products, on a list of goods it will hit with a 25 percent import tax in retaliation for similar moves by Washington. It has not said when it will impose the tariffs.
Unipec said earlier this year it expects to trade up to 300,000 barrels per day (bpd) of U.S. crude oil by the end of the year, about triple its trading volume of U.S. oil last year.
China's crude oil imports from the United States reached an average of 334,880 bpd in the first eight months of this year, according to trade flows data on Thomson Reuters Eikon....
