Trade war signal?
China's state oil company has pulled out of a $5 billion deal to develop offshore Iranian natural gas deposits, the oil minister said Sunday.
The deal had been struck after the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.
Oil Minister Bijan Zangeneh, quoted by the ministry's SHANA news agency, said Sunday that the China National Petroleum Corp. was "no longer in the project."
This could be a sign that China is looking to curry favor with the US but I would warn against that line of thought. Just last month, China updated a comprehensive strategic partnership with Iran that includes $280 billion for developing Iran's oil, gas and petrochemicals sectors and another $120 billion to upgrade transport and manufacturing infrastructure.
