THE country’s crude oil imports from Malaysia stood near record levels in July, customs data showed, with traders and a tanker-tracking analyst citing oil either transshipped from Venezuela or blended with Venezuelan crude for the unusual growth.

Crude imports from Malaysia rose to 1.35 million tons last month, more than double from a year earlier, data from China’s General Administration of Customs showed late Sunday.

That was just below the previous record set in May of 1.38 million tons, triple the average monthly volume in the first four months of 2019.

Imports for the first seven months of 2019 totalled 5.64 million tons, versus 5.17 million tons a year earlier.

Emma Li, analyst with Refinitiv Oil Research, estimated that about 500,000 tons of the Malaysian supplies arriving in July were transshipped from Venezuelan crude supplied by Russian state oil firm Rosneft.

Most of these cargoes found a home in East China’s Shandong Province, a hub for China’s small refineries, as well as the port of Tianijn in North China.

Prior to May, China’s imports of Malaysian crude were mostly of one grade, Nemina, blended from West African crudes, and went to primarily one buyer, State trader ChemChina, according to Refinitiv’s Li.(SD-Agencies)