Iran replaces Saudi Arabia as China's top crude supplier in Oct

Hong Kong (Platts)--28Nov2006

Iran became China's largest crude supplier in October with 1.79 million
mt, snatching the top slot from Saudi Arabia, according to the latest figures
released by the Chinese General Administration of Customs.
The Iranian supplies represented a 11.22% increase over 1.61 million mt
in September and was 7.09% higher on the year.
The October volume accounted for 16.54% of China's total crude imports of
10.82 million mt for the month. Iran was last seen ranked as China's top
supplier in January this year.
Barrels from Saudi Arabia--China's number one crude supplier in
September--plunged sharply in October to 1.33 million mt, down 43% from 2.35
million the previous month. The drop in supplies sent Saudi's ranking down
three notches to fourth place. Year-on-year comparison however still posted a
8.75% growth.
In the second place was Oman with 1.38 million mt to China, up 37% from
September's 1 million mt and was 72% more than a year earlier.
Angola, which held the top supplier title from April to July this year,
saw its barrels to China slip further to 1.36 million mt, 12.7% less than the
September but 11.22% higher than the same 2005 month. Angola was China's third
largest crude supplier in the month.
Chinese purchase of Angolan barrels has been on a downtrend after
reaching a high of 3.18 million mt in May this year.
Kazakhstan for the first time made it to China's top ten crude suppliers
list with 382,558 mt last month. The volume represented a whopping 262% spike
over just 105,650 mt in October 2005.

KAZAKHSTAN IN TOP TEN LIST FOR THE FIRST TIME
China's import of Kazakh crude has been on the rise since the
commissioning of the a new 1,000 km (621 mile) cross-border pipeline system in
July this year. The Atasu-Alataw Shankou pipeline has a handling capacity of
10 million mt/year (about 200,000 b/d) to start with, and will rise to 20
million mt/year in the future.
In fact, in the first 10 months of 2006, the customs already processed
4.03 million mt of crude supplies from Kazakhstan, up 212% from 1.29 million
mt achieved for the whole of 2005.
Meanwhile, the Middle East grades accounted for 47%, or 5.1 million mt,
of China's total 10.82 million mt of crude imports in October. The market
share was higher than September's 44.3% and 43.6% a year ago.
Overall market share of West African producers in China reached 18.7%
in October by supplying 2 million mt. This compared with 20.43% in September
and 16.4% in the same 2005 month.

JAN-NOV IMPORTS LOOK SET TO EXCEED 2005 TOTAL
Meanwhile, China's crude imports look set to exceed last year's total of
127 million mt by the end of this month. In the first ten months of 2006,
China already imported 120 million mt of crude, just 7 million mt less than
the 2005 total.
Between January and October this year, West African shipments rose 31.55%
to 22.45 million mt. In contrast, China's crude imports during the comparison
period only gained 13.8%. Meanwhile, West African crudes accounted for 24.6%
of the Chinese crude import market in January-October, up from 21.3% a year
earlier.
Producers in the Middle East supplied 54.46 million mt of crude to China
in the 10-month period. The volume was only less than 7% higher from 51
million mt supplied in the same 2005 period, a much slower growth rate than
the one scored by West African producers.

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