US to block China from buying SPR crude oil

New US congressional budget bill to block China from buying oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), Reuters reports. The 1k-page bill also lays out funding for six out of 12 segments of government for which the US Congress allocates money and is still subject to a vote by the House of Representatives. The US Senate passed a bill banning the export of SPR oil to China last July, the newswire said. Concerns were raised when Chinese Sinopec’s US-based subsidiary UNIPEC America bought 1 mn barrels of SPR crude in 2022. China bought 83 mn barrels of crude oil from US companies in 2022.