China’s imports hit another record last year despite falling oil demand. Since the start of this year, the world’s biggest oil importer has continued to buy crude at higher prices, but that may be about to change as prices extend their highs.
The price of Brent crude has been running around $70 per barrel for a week, and the outlook remains much higher than forecasts at the end of 2025, which cannot predict recent geopolitical developments and their potential impact on supply security. China, while not as sensitive to international oil prices as its neighbor India, is still sensitive to these prices. And it has made a good list of raw materials.
Imports in 2025 averaged a record 11.55 million barrels per day. This was a 4.4% increase over the previous year, but still not all of this oil was refined. In fact, most of them are stored. After March 2025, “we start to see very effective storage rates, like almost a million barrels per day,” Frederic Lasser, head of research and analysis at commodities trading giant Govern, said last September.
Not only was China stockpiling oil at high prices, but it was also taking steps to expand its oil reserves by building new storage facilities, including a total of 11 with a combined capacity of 169 million barrels. Now, some observers speculated at the time that China was stockpiling oil to seize Taiwan in anticipation of a US reaction, but since nothing has happened around Taiwan, it remains only speculation.
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The clearest explanation for China’s oil-buying behavior comes from its track record as an importer: China buys more oil when it’s cheap and less when it’s expensive. This is actually the normal behavior of any importer of any item. China is simply the largest and, as such, attracts the most attention. Last year, oil was cheap. It was cheap because oil traders were so sure that the oil glut was as big as the IEA predicted, they didn’t care about geopolitics. This year, geopolitics have become more difficult to ignore, and the IEA is revising its estimates. Oil prices have risen, and Chinese buyers may be feeling it.
A recent report said Chinese refiners and traders were buying a record amount of Russian crude, averaging nearly 2.1 million barrels per day in February, according to Kpler. This will rise from 1.7 million barrels per day in January and the withdrawal of Indian oil under pressure from the United States will stop buying Russian crude. Because of this rebound, Russian oil is getting an even deeper discount than before, which is great news for Chinese buyers.
