On Wednesday, Reuters reported that Chinese imports of Russian crude are surging to new records, amid massive discounts which drove sales to the highest levels in three years last month.

In June, China added 2.1 million barrels per day (bpd) to either its strategic or its commercial reserves, as June marked the largest monthly additions to China’s imports of Russian oil in three year. This was an increase from 1.77 million bpd which were added to May’s inventories and the largest since June of 2020, according to calculations by the news agency, which examined figures from the Chinese General Administration of Customs.

China’s Russian imports for June added up to 2.56 million bpd, which marked a stunning 44% increase over the same period one year prior, according to the Chinese customs data.

The data also revealed that China added roughly 950,000 bpd to its inventories over the first five months of the year, which marked a 28% increase over the 740,000 bpd added over the entirety of 2022.

Custom figures show that in the first half of 2023, deliveries of Russian crude were up 22% year over year, to 2.13 million bpd, pushing Russia ahead of its partner in OPEC+, to become the single biggest source of oil to the worlds largest importer so far this year. According to the data, from January to June, Saudi Arabia averaged 1.88 million bpd.

According to Reuters, the robust growth in Chinese purchases is linked to the expected tightening of the oil market we will see in the second half of the year.

Since last November, the OPEC+ group of producers, led by Saudi Arabia and Russia, has been initiating production cuts in an effort to support oil prices, which had been dropping.

Russia pledged earlier this month it would be implementing further cuts of 500,000 bpd beginning in August after a similar pledge by Saudi Arabia. Riyadh had pledged it would extend a production cut of 1 million bpd it had made for an additional month to August. The cuts amount to a reduction in the global supply of 1.5%.