Saudi Arabia has joined a China-led security bloc and trade alliance with China, Russia, India, Pakistan and others

Saudi Arabia has joined a China-led security bloc and trade alliance with China, Russia, India, Pakistan and others, per CNBC.

Saudi Arabia’s cabinet on Tuesday approved a memorandum awarding Riyadh the status of dialogue partner in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

The SCO is a political, security and trade alliance that lists China, Russia, India, Pakistan and four other central Asian nations as members.

Beijing is Riyadh’s largest trading partner, with bilateral trade worth $87.3 billion in 2021, according to Reuters.

Notably, Saudi Arabia is reportedly importing hundreds of thousands of tonnes of Russian fuel oil as it tries to meet summer cooling demands. To be specific, The country will be increasing its imports from just 320,000 tonnes from April to June 2022 to 647,000 tonnes, per data by Refinitiv Eikon ship tracking.

Reuters was able to put the pieces together and found that Saudi Arabia is more than doubling its Russian oil imports as it not only tries to meet demands but also wants to "free up the kingdom's own crude for export."

In 2021, Saudi Arabia reportedly imported 1.05 million tonnes of Russian oil. Vortexa, an energy analytics firm, gave a statement on the demand for oil that pushed Saudi Arabia to increase imports.

"Seasonal demand for power generation feedstocks pushed fuel oil imports into Saudi Arabia to 320,000 barrels per day in June, the highest since November 2020,"

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