In the first eight months of the year, deliveries of Russian crude to China soared 25% year over year, according to new data released by the Chinese General Administration of Customs on Wednesday.

Between January and August, Russian exports to Beijing amounted to 71.2 million tons, as China took advantage of Russian discounts to fill its stockpiles with Russian crude. However, due to lower prices, Russian crude deliveries to China came in at $38.1 billion, which was a 4.1% drop compared to the same period one year ago.

Once again, the Kremlin came in ahead of Saudi Arabia as the top oil supplier in China. During the reporting period, Riyadh exported 60.1 million tons of crude worth $36.49 billion. In third place was Iraq, which supplied 40.3 million tons of crude with a value of $23.04 billion.

In August, crude exports to China soared 30.7% over July’s numbers, with the value of the shipments up 42.7%, at $5.8 billion.

In 2022, China’s purchases of Russian oil increased by 8.2% to 86.2 million tons. Over that period, the cost of Russian crude imported by China increased by roughly 43.9%, to $58.37 billion.

China has increased its purchasing of Russian oil as Russia’s traditional customers in the West shunned it as part of sanctions related to the war in Ukraine. Once the G7 and allied nations imposed an oil embargo and a price cap on Russian petroleum products, Moscow redirected its flows to new customers, which it appealed to with price discounts, mostly in Asia.