• Dr. Bob@lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    9
    ·
    edit-2
    4 days ago

    eta: for those that don’t want to read the link, China has slashed it’s oil imports during the war. That has kept the price below $100 a barrel and helped stabilize international markets. This would have been a much worse mess without China.

    I’ll just leave this here…

    • NaibofTabr@infosec.pub
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      19
      ·
      edit-2
      3 days ago

      Let’s not attempt to frame this as some form of altruistic action.

      The most likely explanation is that China is price sensitive. They’re happy to buy up oil supplies and stockpile it while it can be had cheaply, but when the price goes up they’re less interested in buying a surplus (the only real explanation for cutting imports by such a high volume in such a short time is that a significant portion was being stockpiled and was not going directly to consumption).

      There’s nothing wrong with this, it’s not malicious, it’s good business sense. Buy low, sell high, you know. Good capitalist behavior.