Iran’s largest oil customer China is set to continue importing robust volumes of Iranian crude at least through the end of this year thanks to the U.S. waivers to eight countries that will allow them to keep importing oil from Tehran at reduced volumes until early May next year. To be sure, even before the U.S. granted the waivers, China was thought to be pretty much the only certain Iranian oil customer to continue importing oil from Iran after the U.S. sanctions returned on November 5. It looks like Chinese imports of Iranian oil will be kind of ‘business as usual’ in the fourth quarter, with trade flow estimates showing that China’s demand for Iranian oil has not waned. On the contrary, more barrels went into storage in China over the past two months—a sign that the Chinese may have decided to stockpile some Iranian crude before there was […]