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(Bloomberg) — China purchased more crude in the first two months of the year as the country continued to hoard oil to guard against supply disruptions.
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The world’s biggest buyer imported 96.93 million tons, a 16% increase from January-February 2025, according to customs data on Tuesday. The surplus is being used to fill commercial and strategic stockpiles that may need to be tapped if the US-Israeli war with Iran continues for any length of time.
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Chinese demand helped prop up the global oil market in 2025, despite rising overseas supply and less consumption at home. The accumulated reserves should help cushion the impact of production curbs in the Middle East and a breakdown in trade that sent international prices hurtling toward $120 a barrel on Monday.
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China has about 1.4 billion barrels of crude — or 190 million tons — in strategic storage, according to Erica Downs, senior research scholar at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy. Even if all the country’s imports from the Middle East were cut off, those stockpiles could cover the lost supplies for six months, she said.
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The trade data aggregates the first two months of the year to smooth out distortions from the Lunar New Year holiday, which is typically a slower period for imports.
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Other highlights from Tuesday’s release:
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- Over the two months, copper metal purchases fell 16% year-on-year after buyers were deterred by a surge in prices to all-time highs. Concentrate imports rose 4.9% to feed record output at smelters.
- Iron ore imports rose 10% — continuing last year’s trend of stockpile building — despite weak demand from the steel industry over the lunar holiday. Steel exports fell 8.1%, retreating from December’s record, after tougher licensing rules came into effect.
- Sluggish industrial demand for power over the lunar holiday capped seaborne natural gas and coal cargoes. Domestic output, and record volumes of Russian pipeline gas, were cheaper alternatives.
- Soybean imports dropped 7.8%, despite additional cargoes from the US after the trade truce struck in October.
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On the Wire
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China’s government bond yield curve reached its steepest level in about four years, as inflation concerns triggered by the Iran war pile pressure on longer‑term debt.
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China’s export growth accelerated far faster than expected in the first two months of the year, putting shipments on a record path before US and Israeli strikes on Iran disrupted global trade.
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Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd. shares jumped the most in about six months on Tuesday after the world’s largest maker of electric-vehicle batteries’ earnings beat analyst estimates.
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When Zhang Bo took over his father’s industrial empire in 2019, it was already a sprawling industrial giant and one of the world’s biggest producers of aluminum.
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Four Chinese-run nickel plants in Indonesia have shut down temporarily after a deadly landslide last month at a waste area used by one of the facilities, a sign that companies are being forced to respond to greater official scrutiny of the sector.
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A record volume of so-called illicit crude is being held on tankers off China’s coast, representing a potential buffer for the country’s private refiners as the war in the Middle East disrupts wider flows.
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