China oil buys from Saudi, Iran drop; Libya, Angola up

By Chen Aizhu

BEIJING (Reuters) - China imported less crude oil from Saudi Arabia and Iran in January from a year earlier, but raised purchases from African exporters such as Angola and Libya and smaller MidEast producers Kuwait and Iraq, customs data showed.

But traders familiar with Saudi and Iranian supplies to China said the data could be skewed due to the Lunar New Year holiday and warned against interpreting them as evidence of weakening Chinese demand.

Top exporter Saudi Arabia shipped in 2.91 million tonnes, or 685,000 barrels per day (bpd) last month, a level 7 percent lower than January 2009 but tumbled nearly 500,000 bpd from December's peak at about 1.18 million bpd, customs said.

(For details of China's crude trade:)

"If you average out the December and January numbers, then it's closer to a real monthly volume which is about 900,000 bpd for the Saudi exports," said one trader close to state-run Saudi Aramco.

Imports from Iran almost halved from a year earlier and were a quarter below December at 256,000 bpd, the data showed, in a month that total Chinese crude oil imports rose a third to 4.03 million bpd.

"It's possibly due to port congestions before the holiday. From what we can see supplies from Iran have not gone up, but neither down. February volume could head up again," said a second trader familiar with Iranian oil supplies.

However, China, the world's No.2 crude buyer after the United States, raised imports from Angola which overtook Saudi Arabia as the top exporter with a 53 percent rise in supplies last month.