Chinese Oil Majors Could Form A Powerful Buyers Club — Irina Slav

China’s state-owned oil companies—Sinopec, CNOOC, PetroChina, and Sinochem—are discussing an arrangement to buy crude oil together instead of individually, to avoid bidding wars and gain more bargaining power, unnamed sources in the know told Bloomberg.

The group has already secured the support of the central government and its first step as a collective buyer would be to bid on Russian and African oil cargos on the spot market, the Bloomberg sources said.

If the group bidding pans out, it could indeed give the four quite a lot of bargaining power: Bloomberg notes that Sinopec, CNOOC, PetroChina, and Sinochem together import more than 5 million bpd of crude oil, which is more than 20 percent of OPEC’s total daily production. That stood at a little over 24 million bpd as of May....

 The swing buyer cartel.

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Chinese Oil Majors Could Form A Powerful Buyers Club

Irina Slav