China’s Hengli \u200bPetrochemical, sanctioned by the U.S. for allegedly purchasing Iranian oil, has bought at least 2 million barrels of \u200cWest African crude and is seeking further mainstream supply, several trade sources said, as the refiner looks to get off the U.S. blacklist.<\/p>\n
Hengli, which was penalised by Washington in April and has\u00a0denied buying Iranian oil, is looking to source entirely non-sanctioned oil, six of the people said.<\/p>\n
Privately owned Hengli, which \u200boperates a 400,000 barrels-per-day refinery in the northeastern city of Dalian, has recently inquired about buying cargoes of West African \u200band non-Iranian Middle Eastern crude for delivery from June onward, multiple sources said.<\/p>\n
It bought at least 2 \u2060million barrels of West African crude for China delivery around late June or July, three of the sources said.<\/p>\n
Hengli and the \u200bU.S. Treasury did not respond to requests for comment. All of the sources spoke on the condition of anonymity due to the \u200bsensitivity of the matter.<\/p>\n
While China rejects unilateral sanctions, such a designation can deter counterparties from dealing with sanctioned companies for fear of being penalised by the U.S. government.<\/p>\n
A company can seek removal from the sanctions list by providing information “that establishes that an insufficient basis exists for the listing or that \u200bthe circumstances resulting in the listing no longer apply,” according to the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control.<\/p>\n
SEEKING SANCTIONS REMOVAL<\/strong><\/p>\n Hengli said \u200bin late April it would seek a legal path for removal from the sanctions list, and that it held crude inventories to feed at \u200cleast three \u2060months of processing and would continue buying oil using China’s renminbi currency.<\/p>\n Several trade sources said that supplying Hengli with non-sanctioned oil would be complicated as sellers would not want to be exposed to potential secondary sanctions, meaning any such transactions would be made through a chain of middlemen.<\/p>\n By contrast, another private Chinese refiner,\u00a0Shandong Yulong Petrochemical, became even more reliant on Russian crude after it was sanctioned \u200bby the United Kingdom and the \u200bEuropean Union last year over \u2060Russian oil purchases, making it difficult to buy mainstream crude, sources said.<\/p>\n Yulong did not immediately respond to a request for comment on its oil purchases.<\/p>\n Chinese independent refineries, the main buyers of Iranian \u200boil, face dwindling supply from the Middle East producer as the U.S.-Israeli\u00a0war on Iran\u00a0enters a \u200bfourth month and \u2060a U.S. naval blockade in place since April 13 curtails Iranian exports.<\/p>\n Hengli had since late 2024 been heavily reliant on Iranian oil and had also purchased Russian crude, according to multiple traders.<\/p>\n Falling crude inventories have forced Hengli to reduce its June processing rates to slightly below \u206070% from \u200bjust over 80% last month, two of the people said.<\/p>\n Last month, Reuters reported \u200bthat Hengli’s former Singapore-based trading arm planned to\u00a0cease operations\u00a0in the wake of U.S. sanctions.<\/p>\n China’s imports of Iranian crude fell to 1.19 million barrels per day last month, \u200bthe lowest since September, Kpler data showed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" China’s Hengli \u200bPetrochemical, sanctioned by the U.S. for allegedly purchasing Iranian oil, has bought at least 2 million barrels of \u200cWest African crude and is seeking further mainstream supply, several trade sources said, as the refiner looks to get off the U.S. blacklist. Hengli, which was penalised by Washington in April and has\u00a0denied buying Iranian […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21096,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":2,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"Reuters","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[2831,2362,27],"tags":[396,5199,5198],"class_list":["post-21095","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-energy","category-featured","category-west-africa","tag-china","tag-dalian","tag-hengli-petrochemical"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21095","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21095"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21095\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21097,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21095\/revisions\/21097"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}