This
is not the first time that the two major oil importers are working to create
such an oil club. India and China have
discussed creating an ‘oil buyers’ club’ to be able to negotiate better prices
with oil exporting countries and will be looking to import more U.S. crude oil
in order to reduce OPEC’s sway, both over the global oil market and over prices,
India’s Petroleum Ministry said in June 2018.
“With
oil producers' cartel OPEC playing havoc with prices, India discussed with
China the possibility of forming an 'oil buyers club' that can negotiate better
terms with sellers as well as getting more US crude oil to cut dominance of the
oil block,” a tweet from the Petroleum Ministry’s Twitter account said in the
middle of last year, when oil prices were rising ahead of the return of the
U.S. sanctions on Iran’s oil industry.
According
to the officials cited by livemint, China and India have exchanged senior-level
visits several times since then and have made progress on “joint sourcing of
crude oil.”
Reports
of the strengthened Chinese-Indian cooperation in potentially forming an oil
buyers’ club come just as the U.S. sanction waivers for all Iranian oil
customers expire this week.
China
is Iran’s number-one customer, while India is the second-largest buyer of
Iranian oil, so the end of the U.S. waivers will mostly affect refiners in
those two oil importers who will be scrambling to source crude from other
sources or risk secondary U.S. sanctions.
“China
and India should do so to grab more bargaining power to make oil prices more
sustainable,” Jawaharlal Nehru University Professor Srikanth Kondapalli told
the Global Times in a recent interview, commenting on the benefits of an oil
buyers’ club. [emp]
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