Chinese business lifts Dubai oil trades

Domestic demand helps fuel changes in the way that transactions are done in the world market

Chinese oil companies' rapid switch of oil purchases from over the counter to exchange-based transactions has helped the eight-year-old Dubai Mercantile Exchange become a highly influential regional crude oil marketplace.

Within eight years, Chinese oil imports have grown to account for 70 percent of the physical delivery of oil traded on the Dubai-based DME, compared with about 40 percent three years ago.