China · CHN
China
The buyer that sets the seaborne tape. 17 mb/d of oil demand, 73% imported, and a 1.4 billion-barrel SPR. Gasoline and diesel have been falling; petrochemicals have not.
Oil production
4.2 mb/d
17.0 mb/d demand
Net oil
-12.8 mb/d
Import gap
Gas production
250 bcm
Net -170 bcm
O&G rent
0.4%
Share of GDP
Oil balance
Production versus demand, 2025, million barrels per day.
Gas balance
Production versus demand, 2025, billion cubic metres.
Proven oil
26 bn bbl
Gas reserves
6.6 tcm
Refining
18.2 mb/d
LNG
78 bcm import
Hydrocarbon mix
Oil versus gas in this country’s oil-and-gas demand (oil-equivalent).
- Oil53%
- Gas47%
Inflows and outflows
What leaves. What arrives.
China outflows 0 kb/d crude, 0 bcm LNG. Inflows 6.78 mb/d crude, 84 bcm LNG.
Local crude
INE Shanghai (SC)
$124.0
3 January 2026 · Maduro ousted
28 February 2026 · Iran war started
Yuan contract, shown in USD at ~7.2 CNY. Tracks medium-sour Middle East barrels. Front month near 894 yuan on 15 September.
All crude tapes and bpd flowsMapped crude
Barrels per day.
Outbound
None mapped.
Inbound
- Russia2.38 mb/d+360 kb/d
- United States1.40 mb/d+1.05 mb/d
- Brazil920 kb/d+140 kb/d
- Saudi Arabia720 kb/d−930 kb/d
- UAE520 kb/d−320 kb/d
- Iraq470 kb/d−650 kb/d
- Kuwait260 kb/d−380 kb/d
- Iran80 kb/d−1.30 mb/d
- Venezuela30 kb/d−390 kb/d
LNG out
None mapped.
LNG in
- Australia34 bcm+6 bcm
- Malaysia12 bcm+2 bcm
- Russia11 bcm+3 bcm
- United States10 bcm+4 bcm
- Indonesia9 bcm+1 bcm
- Qatar8 bcm−14 bcm
Economy
A Hormuz premium is a current-account and refining event. Oil demand may have peaked in 2023–25; the SPR and PDH plants still pull crude. Pipeline gas from Russia and LNG from the US are the winter hedge.
- GDP
- $19.2 tn
- Population
- 1,410.0 m
- Oil intensity
- 0.3 bbl /$1k
- Oil & gas rent
- 0.4% GDP
- Hydrocarbon trade
- 2.8% GDP
- Fiscal breakeven
- —
- $30 oil shock
- -7.3 pp GDP
- Club
- Independent
Delivery
On the geopolitical timeline.
2025
PacificPower of Siberia hits nameplate into China.
38 bcm/yr, expanding toward 44 bcm
Gazprom’s eastern trunk reaches contracted capacity. Unlike Kozmino crude, this gas has one buyer. It is also the argument Moscow will use in 2026 when it tries to sell Beijing a second, larger pipe.
2025–January 2026
PacificChina takes Arctic LNG-2 cargoes anyway.
23 cargoes to Beihai in 2025; another in January 2026
Chinese companies already sit in Yamal and Arctic LNG-2. When US authorities banned the project, China was the only large market still willing to berth the ships. A Pacific delivery choice with a political price.
March 2026
PacificChina loses Gulf and Venezuelan barrels in one season.
~half of China’s oil had transited Hormuz; VE was ~3%
About 12% of China’s 2025 oil imports came from Iran; Gulf barrels on top of that meant roughly half of Chinese crude, and ~15% of its gas, moved through Hormuz. The US Navy’s Venezuelan blockade had already cut the Western Hemisphere option. Beijing leans harder on Russia, domestic output and stocks — and starts treating a second Siberian pipe as insurance, not a favour to Moscow.
2–4 September 2026
PacificPower of Siberia 2 is renamed Power of Baikal.
Up to 50 bcm/yr via Mongolia, still unsigned as a contract
Putin renames the project; Novak says Russia and China will accelerate talks so companies can close a supply contract. After Hormuz, the overland option is China’s insurance — and Russia’s only large growth market, with China already a third of bilateral trade via energy in the first seven months of 2026. A memorandum is not a tariff.
Projected oil demand
Regional IEA WEO 2025 oil pathways applied to this country’s 2025 baseline. STEPS 2035 demand 15.6 mb/d (net -11.9) versus NZE 8.5 mb/d (net -6.4).
| Scenario | 2025 | 2030 | 2035 | 2050 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stated Policies | 17.0 | 16.7 | 15.6 | 12.2 |
| Net Zero 2050 | 17.0 | 13.9 | 8.5 | 3.1 |
| Current Policies | 17.0 | 16.9 | 16.1 | 13.2 |