PetroChina pays highest price among all winners Final destination of the crude not yet decided Analyst calls it a profile-building exercise PetroChina International has bought crude oil from the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve — the first such purchase by a Chinese company — in a move that further underscores growing Chinese interest in US crude. PetroChina International, the overseas trading arm of state-owned oil giant PetroChina, bought 550,000 barrels from the SPR in the US Department of Energy’s latest sale for a total of $28.8 million ($52.36/b). A Beijing-based senior crude trader with PetroChina International Tuesday said that the deal, announced last week by the US Department of Energy, was not yet completed and they have not decided whether to bring the barrels back to China or send them elsewhere as the volume is small. PetroChina’s Houston office would not comment. “We notice that more and more crude barrels […]