OREANDA-NEWS. September 17, 2014. China is set to depend heavily on the capacity of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) to provide a stable flow of oil for the next ten years, Saudi Gazette reported.

The deal earlier announced between Kuwait Petroleum Corp (KPC) and China's Sinopec to double the amount of daily exports establishes a clear step in this direction. The new deal gets 300,000 barrels per day (bpd) of Kuwaiti oil for China over the next decade, almost twice the amount of the existing contract, which is about to expire.

Saudi Arabia is already the leading source of oil for China, exporting 1.2 million bpd, or about 20 percent of the total Chinese imports of oil. Over the last year, the share of Qatar's exports heading to China grew from 5.5 percent to 6.6 percent of the total, while UAE saw an increase in exports to China although more modest.