We knew there was a reason why China had accumulated a cool 1.5 billion barrels in its strategic petroleum reserve: the reason, to become the world's strategist petroleum reserve when the time arises... for a price of course.

According to the chief executive officer of commodity trader Mercuria, Chinese oil companies have been aggressive sellers in recent weeks, selling barrels to several nations in tenders.

“What has been happening in the last two or three weeks is actually they have been aggressively selling crude oil,” Mercuria CEO Marco Dunand said at the FT Commodities Global Summit in Lausanne on Tuesday. “They’ve taken out a lot of demand from various countries and offered aggressively in tenders."

Dunand said there are a variety of possible explanations for the selling. They include the release of oil inventories within China, continued sales of Iranian oil in the weeks after the war started, and possible optimism that the Strait of Hormuz would reopen quicker than it has so far. 

He also said that Mercuria sees Chinese gasoline demand falling by 1 million barrels a day this year as a result of electric-vehicle adoption, which also could have played a factor in the sales.

But the most important thing Dunand said, was his response to question how long this last: “How long can they do this for? I think the guess would be probably for about another three weeks and then I think at that point they would have to revise their position."

Well, three weeks is also how long Iran has before its oil sector is permanently shut in. The good news: the end of the Iran war is - one way or another - now in sight.