The financial news provider quoted informed officials on Friday as saying that
the US had been unable to persuade China to cut Iranian oil imports and that
Beijing's purchases from Tehran last month remained unchanged.
This is a blow to US President Donald Trump’s efforts to isolate Iran after his
withdrawal from a 2015 nuclear deal with the country, officially known as the
Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), they said.
Beijing, however, agreed not to increase purchases of Iranian crude, said the
officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Trump unilaterally withdrew the US from the multilateral deal with Iran in May
and announced plans to reimpose sanctions on the Islamic Republic, that would
eliminate Tehran's oil revenues.
China - the world’s top crude buyer and Iran’s No. 1 customer - has said
previously that it opposed unilateral sanctions and lifted monthly oil imports
from the country by 26 percent in July.
It accounted for 35 percent the Iranian exports last month, according to
ship-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg.
Tehran has said if it cannot sell its oil, other regional countries would not be
able to do so neither, triggering speculation that Tehran may block the Strait
of Hormuz, through which many international oil cargoes pass.
India's Iranian oil imports up
India, the second purchaser of Iranian crude, also increased its imports from
Iran last month.
Preliminary tanker arrival data cited by Reuters on Thursday showed that the
Asian country increased purchases of Iranian crude by about 30 percent to a
record 768,000 barrels per day (bpd) as state refiners' intake surged ahead of
US sanctions in November.
India’s July purchases of Iran’s oil were about 85 percent higher in comparison
to the shipments of about 415,000 bpd a year earlier, the news agency said.
State refiners accounted for about four-fifth of Iranian crude sales in July
with Indian Oil Corp along with its unit Chennai Petroleum Corp getting about
300,000 bpd oil from Tehran, the preliminary data showed.
US officials have softened their stance after initially saying they would press
allies in Europe, Asia and the Middle East to adhere to the sanctions and reduce
their imports to zero. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said last month his
country was open to consider waivers for certain buyers of Iranian oil.
Source: Press TV