Oil Tankers Divert From China’s Rizhao Port After US Sanctions
(Bloomberg) -- Three supertankers that were headed for Rizhao port are now looking for alternative berths, following US sanctions on the terminal that handles around a 10th of China’s oil imports.
Two of the very large crude carriers, which can haul as much as 2 million barrels, are signaling Ningbo Zhoushan port near Shanghai as their destination, according to ship-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg. The third is now on its way to Tianjin in China’s north.
The Rizhao Shihua Crude Oil Terminal, which was blacklisted by Washington last week over its role in taking Iranian crude, is located in Shandong province, the center of China’s refining industry. Partly owned by Sinopec, Rizhao is the major entry point for foreign crude for the oil major, also known as China Petroleum & Chemical Corp., and is connected with several of its facilities by a lengthy pipeline.
Spherical — which is carrying around 2 million barrels of Brazilian oil — and the New Vista, with about 1.8 million barrels of Abu Dhabi crude, are heading to Ningbo Zhoushan. Habshan, transporting 1.9 million barrels from Africa, is signaling Tianjin.
As well as being routed to different ports, oil that was headed to Rizhao could also be offloaded onto smaller ships to be taken to Sinopec refineries along the Yangtze River that get their oil via the pipeline from the terminal in Shandong, Energy Aspects Ltd. said in a note last week.
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