Mubasher: Chinese crude importers abstained from purchasing US oil fearing that Beijing’s decision to exclude the commodity from its duty list amid a trade row with Washington could be temporary.

Since the beginning of August, no oil carrier has loaded crude from the US bound for Chinese coasts, as shown by Thomson Reuters Eikon ship tracing data, compared with around 300,000 barrels per day (bpd) in the two previous months.

Though crude imports were excluded from Beijing’s finalised raft of tariffs on $16 billion in US goods last week, potential buyers in China were worried that oil could be used as a bargaining chip in future negotiations with Washington, which could be included into the list, should the trade friction get worse.

“Since it takes months to get US crude [to China], this (shying away from purchasing US oil) is a precautionary measure to avoid any distressed selling in case the government puts tariffs on US crude oil,” energy consultancy Wood Mackenzie’s research director Sushant Gupta told Reuters.

A Chinese refinery source told the news agency also that the firm was monitoring how the situation would develop before ordering new US shipments.

However, another petroleum source in the Chinese market said that US oil may have been excluded from the tariff list just to ease “clearing shipments” that have been already ordered.

Beijing “probably wants to impose [duties] when there is no more US crude on the water, so I won’t take it as a reversal of the political stance on US crude,” the latter source said.

As China’s move to exclude US oil imports revealed the growing importance of the US as a major global oil exporter and critical alternative supplier for the top crude consumer, Beijing has been resorting to the Middle East, West Africa and Latin America, shipping data and traders said.

This came as a result of a narrow price gap between Brent and Dubai oil which allowed Atlantic basin crude shipments to head profitably to Asia.