Cosco Shipping Tanker (Dalian) Co is slowly returning to international trading after some data providers reported sharp falls in China’s imports of Iranian crude.

A main shipowning subsidiary of state-owned tanker giant Cosco Shipping Energy Transportation (CSET), its tanker fleet had been largely out of trading between 25 September and 31 January due to US sanctions.

However, Bloomberg data shows 15 of Cosco Dalian’s 26 VLCCs have left anchorage in the past week, as well as one of its three suezmaxes, two of its three aframaxes, seven of its...