China has issued its second batch of crude oil import quotas to independent refiners and trading companies for 2018—a much smaller batch, but the low volumes were expected because the first batch was a large one and estimated to cover nearly a year’s worth of small refiners’ imports. China’s second batch of import quotas has a total volume of 11.91 million tons, Reuters reported on Friday, citing three trade sources who had seen the official documents. As many as 26 companies were allowed to import crude oil in the second batch, including 21 independent refiners, the so-called teapots, who were first allowed to start importing government-approved quotas of crude oil in 2015. The first batch of the 2018 import quotas was issued in December last year, when China approved crude oil import quotas for a total of 121.32 million tons for 44 companies. This total volume in the first […]