US withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal is reinforcing a trend that was already underway as doubts mounted about the Donald Trump administration’s commitment to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA): Iran is looking east for its economic survival.
Under waivers announced by the Trump administration in November, eight countries are permitted to continue to import oil and condensates from Iran until March without falling afoul of US sanctions. Five of the eight are in Asia and of them, China is the biggest.
During a previous bout of sanctions in the lead-up to the JCPOA, China eclipsed the European Union as Iran’s major trading partner. It has vowed since Trump became president to continue this relationship with Iran for both economic and geopolitical reasons.
According to S&P Global Platts, China bought nearly 600,000 barrels per day of Iranian oil in October and may have purchased 650,000 barrels a day in November — considerably above its waiver quota of 360,000 barrels a day. Much of the crude went to refineries in Liaoning province that had not previously refined Iranian oil but where the National Iranian Oil Company has acquired storage capacity.