Contender: Saudi Arabia nabs new China oil demand, challenges Russia's top spot

Saudi Arabia, the biggest global oil exporter, has been surpassed by Russia as top crude supplier to China the past two years as private "teapot" refiners and a new pipeline drove up demand for Russian oil. Now fresh demand from new refineries starting up in 2019 could increase China's Saudi oil imports by between 300,000 barrels per day (bpd) and 700,000 bpd, nudging the OPEC kingpin back towards the top, analysts say. Saudi Aramco said last week it will sign five crude supply agreements that will take its 2019 contract totals with Chinese buyers to 1.67 million bpd.

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