Reuters, citing data from commodity intelligence firm Kpler, reports that China’s daily purchases of Iran’s oil have fallen to 556,000 barrels in the current month…

Reuters, citing data from the commodity intelligence company Kpler, has reported that China’s daily purchases of Iran’s oil have dropped to 556,000 barrels in the current month.

Previously, Kpler told Voice of America that last month Iran had delivered 650,000 barrels of oil to China, which is approximately equal to one third of April.

Reuters writes that smaller, independent Chinese refineries—Iran’s only oil buyers—prefer to purchase more oil from the UAE, Qatar, and Iraq.

According to this report, independent refineries and petrochemical companies, which are mainly based in Shandong province, have purchased more than 30 million barrels of oil from Iraq, the UAE, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia at discounted prices over the past few weeks.