伊朗战争揭示中国石油武器：削减进口成市场缓冲

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America's war with Iran is now in its fifth month with only a few brief weeks of peace in between. [music] That means the largest oil and gas supply shock to the world continues to deepen. Early on in the war, as you heard on this podcast and so many other places, analysts were worried about the [music] oil price shooting up to $200 a barrel, causing a global recession and stoking [music] panic in the markets. That didn't happen.

The oil price didn't even reach $130 a barrel. This is zero. [music] I'm Akshadrati. this week. Where did the panic go and what happens next? [music] Joining me to discuss the impacts of the Iran war on global energy markets is Javier Blas, a Bloomberg opinion columnist covering energy and commodities. He's also co-author of the book The World for Sale, Money, Power, and the Traders Who Barter the Earth's Resources. Javier, welcome to Zero.

Thank you for having me.

So, let's go back in time. on March 5th, barely a week into the war, you wrote a column titled, "This isn't an energy crisis, at least not yet." Now, Fman, you were right. We haven't quite seen an energy crisis of the scale in oil markets as we have seen in the past, but for the wrong reasons.

Oh, absolutely. For the wrong reasons. I I I'm very happy to admit that I was right for the wrong reasons, which effectively means I was wrong. Um uh so in some ways I got very lucky that this didn't turn out as a full energy crisis. There were some elements on that column that I think I was on the money. There were other elements that I wasn't. I think that the biggest one that I miss is I thought that the White House was conscious that this needed to be a quick conflict that they were going to go in and out rather quickly.

That has proven completely a mistake. What I think I got it more right was that this was a crisis that it was a big deal for the oil market. There was a significant deal for the LG market but doesn't mean the gas market. the gas market is a much larger piece that the LG market and I I said that there was a race of analyzing this crisis or this shock if the global economy was still in 197374 when the first oil crisis hit and I think that the the global economy is very different for for a number of reasons and we can go into them.

What surprised me and I think that we at Bloomberg opinion were quite quickly to recognize of the importance of it was the role of China in this crisis. China pre-war on the seaborn market. This is the the crude oil that is bought by dunker was buying anywhere from 10 to 12 million barrels a day depending of the month. Say on average 11 million barrels a day. In June, China bowed less than six million bars and more than a 50% reduction in total oil imports from kind of pre-war levels or 40 40 to 50% drop.

And that really changed the market completely because China acted as a balancing uh mechanism. I call it the the invisible hand of the oil market. It was very visible and very directed by Beijing. the price have gone up and and certainly it's a bit painful but it has not been a complete flown blown up crisis that people will complain and and looking at the global economy nothing suggest we I mean inflation is contained is under 3% interest rates have not really gone up meaningfully yes we are if we look at the bond market at you know the the highest in a number of years but there are many other reasons for that the stock market keeps going up unemployment remains low Nothing really says crisis and certainly nothing similar to the crisis of 197374 or any other oil crisis that we have had since.

But yes, I was right but only for the wrong reasons.

Let's go through the numbers here because you know $200 a barrel was floated. Now, we're recording this on August 3rd, and the price of oil is below $85 a barrel, and you know, Iran and the US are apparently talking again, but it did not even go beyond $130 at its very peak in the war. You talked about how China was about 5 million barrels a day of sort of buffer provided, taking essentially not taking that supply and allowing the rest of the world to not panic as much.

Another five to seven million barrels a day came from oil rrooting that happened where Saudis got about 5 million barrels a day going outside Harmuz into the Red Sea and same thing the UAE about 2 million barrels a day. That takes you about 12 million barrels a day. There was the release of the strategic petroleum reserve which goes between 2 and 3 million barrels a day. That still leaves 2 or 3 million barrels a day.

Those comes commercial inventories. We have been draining commercial inventories. The market also at the beginning of the war. Now clearly we know that it was over supply. So supply was running above demand and the rest of the world has not kept just a steady. Oil production in the Americas is booming. Um United States when you count every barrel in the US and I like to count not just the crude but also condensates and natural gas liquids because we count them from the demand side.

When we talk about 100 million barrels a day of demand, we mean oil, total oil liquids. Sio, you count every barrel in the US. The US is producing a million barrels a day more than a year ago. If you look at production of Brazil is up 20% year on year. Venezuela is doing more. Argentina is doing a bit more. Colombia is doing a bit more. And you know, they are incremental. I mean, some of these countries are doing 50,000 barrels a day more, which is almost a statistical noise.

You put all of that, the statistical noise together, you know, the Americas from uh the north of uh Alaska all the way to Ti Fuego in in Argentina probably is producing about 2 million bars a day more than a year ago. That's making a difference. I give you an example, a country that has been suffering for a long civil war and a lot of unstability. uh Libya Libya production last month probably the data is a bit fussy but Libya most likely produced the most oil last month since the very early days of the revolution in 2011 2012 a lot of that has held on the market

but the big story is the China story is the 5 million barrels a day story what do we know and what do we not know about how China pulled this off

I think that we know very little. So what we know is that China has reduced its purchases of seabone crude significantly. That's what we know that China pre-war was buying somewhere around 11 million barrels a day and that in June it bought uh less than six. That has increased a bit to probably six and a half in July. Uh but we are still massively down. This this is the less purchases by China in in at least 10 years. how China has done it.

That's when it becames conjecture at at best and I'm not going to claim to know how China has done it. We one of the problems is that China does not provide data on his inventories. It does not provide even an estimate of his demand for oil. Many other countries provide estimates uh every month in Europe uh every week in the United States. China simply does not publish any any information. So everyone is is trying to guess what is happening and we can see things I mean clearly um demand has come down clearly the Chinese economy is not enjoying the best of the days but to justify a drop of 40% imports of oil.

No I I don't think so probably China is releasing some oil from a strategic inventories or commercial inventories. It seems that sun oil has been released but not a significant lot. There are a number of elements probably China have a lot of stockpiles of refined products and they have been running that down. They probably have a lot of stockpile on plastics or plastic commodities. They may have been running down. China is unique in the rest of the world that has a big chemical industry that use coal rather than oil or gas as a feed stock.

Probably they're running that harder. But is that much capacity to completely explain everything? I th

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