China’s crude oil imports from ship-to-ship transfers soared threefold between August and September to 910,000 tons, Bloomberg reports , citing ship tracking data. The source of the oil, the agency noted, was unclear. “I think its highly likely that these ship-to-ship and Malaysian volumes are Iranian or Venezuelan crude,” Bloomberg quoted Michal Meidan, the head of the China Energy Programme at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies as saying. “But of course the whole point here is to make it hard to be sure,” Meidan added. Indeed, it is no secret that Iran has taken to ship-to-ship transfers in the open sea to avoid U.S. sanctions and continue exporting oil. China is the country’s most important oil buyer, not least because of its trade spat with the United States, and has been openly insisting that it will not stop buying Iranian crude. China has pledged $400 billion in investments […]