China Seeks Russia’s Rejected Oil with Record Discounts
Russian Urals crude, whose purchases were halted by India, has shifted to China with record discounts; millions of barrels are waiting at sea for buyers.
China Sharply Increases Imports
According to Reuters, citing industry sources, China has sharply increased imports of Urals crude after Indian refineries previously the largest buyers—gave up on it due to sanctions. In December, seaborne shipments of Russian oil to China exceeded 1.5 million barrels per day, 300,000 barrels above the January–November average.
Shipments of Urals crude previously taken by India tripled in the last quarter, reaching 259,000 barrels per day. Thanks to record discounts seen since the start of the war, imports rose 70% in January to 447,000 barrels per day, the highest level since April 2023.
Discounts at Russian ports reached $26–28 per barrel, while after deducting shipping costs, they stood at around $10 per barrel at Chinese ports.
“Indian Refineries Stopped Processing”
Rajesh Chopra, Chief Analyst of Petrochemicals at XAnalysts, assessed the situation of major Indian refineries as follows: “Since December, they have hardly processed Russian oil designed to be exported to the EU. This has led to a drop of about 500,000 barrels per day in India’s imports of Urals crude.”
According to Reuters calculations, shipments to India fell to 929,000 barrels per day in December, the lowest since December 2022. India imported an average of 1.36 million barrels per day of Urals crude in 2024, and 1.27 million barrels per day in 2025.
Millions of Barrels Waiting at Sea
However, Russian oil companies have not yet managed to sell all the oil originally planned for India to China.
Bloomberg estimates that since U.S. sanctions against Rosneft and Lukoil came into effect at the end of November, about 35 million barrels of Russian oil have been waiting in tankers at sea.
The agency reported that at least 12 ships loaded with Urals crude have been anchored off Oman since mid-December, with new tankers arriving almost daily.
Due to difficulties in sales, Russian oil companies have begun cutting production, even though OPEC+ quotas allow increases. Russia produced 9.326 million barrels per day in December, 100,000 barrels less than in November and 250,000 barrels below the level permitted by the OPEC+ agreement.
