Some short sighted nerd forgot to factor in the Russia to China oil pipelines.
Why ship when you simply have to pump?
That is a factor.
Chinese import of Russian oil is about 2.1 million bpd. 1.4 mbpd is by sea, the vast majority of which is imported by independent refinery arrays. The Govt refineries are not the primary importers.
So about 700K bpd is arriving in China by pipeline. It looks like 800-900K bpd are independent refiners not very far inland but not owned by PetroChina (the big govt refiner).
China doesn’t really have anywhere else it can get 2.1 mbpd. No one else has that sort of free capacity for export — having pre-existing customers. This has been reality for quite some time.
One does wonder at China’s response to their refiners getting sanctioned. There were suggestions they might do a deal for their rare earth export controls, but this event is unlikely to encourage that.
A case can be made for Russia, China and India having isolated the US and EU from the world community, and it will be noted as being due to their behavior.
You can only pump so much Sh#t through a goose (so to speak).
Meaning that the pipelines do not satisfy their required needs.
There also may be Chinese refineries that are not hooked up to pipelines from Russia. That is because typically is was cheaper to buy crude by Supertanker delivery.
Almost all major refineries in the world are built where they can accept delivery by tanker vessel. This is why back during the beginning of Covid the futures price of WTI(West Texas Intermediate Crude) literally sold for LESS THAN ZERO.
That is because all the companies that have tanks to store the oil in Texas were full. They could not accept any more TRUCKLOAD Tanker deliveries.
That is because the refineries are set up to get oil delivered by pipeline or Supertanker. Other forms of oil delivery MAY get discounted in price.
This is the goal of the Trump administration. Force China and India to lower their Russian oil purchases by putting tariffs on their exports to the USA. The lower price FOB/barrel in Russia means Vlad’s revenues are down.
China and India are the main purchasing countries of Russian
oil since the Ukraine war embargoes. These two countries are already buying Russian oil at a large discount to the spot price. This makes the price even lower.
It is all being done to put pressure on Vlad to end the war.