China is importing the most Russian Urals crude since 2023 at prices lower than Iranian oil after top buyer India cut imports sharply due to Western sanctions and before a European Union ban on products made from Russian oil, according to trade sources and shipping data.
Tougher Western sanctions on Russian oil producers and pressure from the Trump administration pushed Indian refiners to scale back imports in December and seek alternatives. Top importer Reliance Industries, whose refined products are exported to EU, halted Russian oil imports in January.
India's lower demand boosted the supply of cheap Russian crude for China, providing a buffer for the loss of Venezuelan oil at the world's top oil importer after Washington raided the OPEC producer and took over the sale of millions of barrels of Venezuelan oil.
China's Urals crude imports reached 405,000 barrels per day so far this month, the highest level since June 2023, data from analytics firm Kpler showed, with total seaborne imports from Russia close to 1.4 million bpd.
Vortexa data showed that China's seaborne Russian crude imports surged above 1.5 million bpd in December, up from about 1.2 million bpd in the first eleven months of 2025.
In India, December Urals imports fell to 929,000 bpd, the lowest since December 2022, Kpler data showed, versus an average of 1.36 million bpd in 2024 and 1.27 million bpd in 2025.
Urals has lost favour at refineries in India and Turkey that make diesel for export to Europe, two trade sources said, as the EU ban on fuel produced from Russian-origin crude will start on January 21. Refiners supplying Europe must run clean of Russian crude for at least two months before output is eligible for sale.
China, on the other hand, exports little oil products to Europe.
"There's some benefit for Chinese refiners, they'd be able to snap up the Urals if prices are good enough, at a time when Venezuelan shipments to China are falling," said Rajesh Chopra, Chief Petrochemical Analyst with energy consultancy XAnalysts.
China's independent refiners in the eastern Shandong province – the main buyers of sanctioned crude – stepped up Russian oil purchases after receiving fresh 2026 import quotas and as prices tumbled.
Shandong Yulong Petrochemical, a mega refinery sanctioned by the UK and the EU, has now fully pivoted to Russian crude.
That has raised Shandong's Russian crude demand by about 250,000 bpd since November, Vortexa analyst Emma Li wrote in a January 13 report.
Yulong did not respond to a request for comment from Reuters.
The three ex-Sinochem refineries in Shandong are expected to buy more Russian crude with their 2026 import quotas instead of buying via Sinochem, trade sources said.
Discounts for Urals crude for delivery to China in late 2025 were as wide as $12 per barrel to ICE Brent since they were redirected to Shandong from India, said a Chinese trade source, cheaper than Iranian Light which was offered at a discount of $8 per barrel at that time.
That has put pressure on Iranian oil sales, traders and analysts said, with offers for Urals and Iranian Light currently on par at discounts of about $10 a barrel for March-arrival cargoes.
Meanwhile, the discount on Russian ESPO blend, the main grade China imports, was at around $7-8 per barrel, compared with a discount of $5-6 in early December and a premium in September.
(Reporting by Chen Aizhu, Siyi Liu in Singapore and Reuters reporters in Moscow; Editing by Florence Tan and Raju Gopalakrishnan)
