China said to tell two state-owned oil companies to halt purchases from Iran

That's a big move

Bloomberg reports that China has told at least two state-owned oil companies to avoid buying Iranian oil with sanctions set to take effect Nov 4.

The two are China National Petroleum Corp and Sinopec and it's said to be temporary but depends on negotiations with the US. It could be that Beijing is dangling the possibility of cutting off Iran if it can get something in return from the White House.

If sales are truly halted that's a major blow to Iran.

For the oil market, it's not entirely new news as Reuters earlier reported those companies had made no November orders for Iran's oil.

Meanwhile, China has also halted orders for US oil.