OREANDA-NEWS. November 21, 2013. Three Chinese companies are in talks with three producers of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) in Iran on term supply contracts for next year.

Chinese companies Jovo Energy, Guangdong Zhenrong and Zhangjiagang Oriental Energy are negotiating with Iran's Petrochemical Commercial Company (PPC), National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) and National Iranian Gas Company (NIGC) to purchase LPG.

“They are preparing to lift Iranian LPG. They are going to have high demand and one of their supply sources is Iran,” the weekly Platts quoted an informed shipping source as saying on Thursday, who added, “These people have the ships to carry large liftings in Iran in 2014.”

“They are in the final stages of negotiations, or around 70% complete, and the agreements will be completed within the next two months,” an unnamed Middle Eastern source was quoted as saying.

China resumed its LPG imports from Iran in June after a one-year break. Over the past years, China has been a regular importer of Iranian LPG.

Jovo Energy is reported to have concluded a one-year deal with an Iranian LPG supplier to receive one 40,000-million ton parcel of LPG each month as of November 2013.

China’s customs data recently showed that Iran is also the biggest supplier of fuel oil to the country in September. The data, provided by China’s General Administration of Customs, showed that Iran shipped 410,867 million tons (mt) of fuel oil to China in September.

Moreover, China’s crude oil imports from Iran increased in September 2013 from one year earlier despite the US-led sanctions imposed on the Islamic Republic’s oil and financial sectors.

China imported 475,521 barrels per day (bpd) of Iranian crude oil last month, registering a 24-percent rise compared to the same period last year.

At the beginning of 2012, the United States and the European Union imposed new sanctions on Iran’s oil and financial sectors with the goal of preventing other countries from purchasing Iranian oil and conducting transactions with the Central Bank of Iran.