Daily Oil Purchases of 900,000 Barrels: How China is Preparing for a Long-Term Trade War with the United States
China is ensuring its energy security
Image caption: An oil tanker unloads imported crude oil at an oil terminal in Qingdao, Shandong Province, China.
China has been well-prepared for a long-term trade war with the United States. In fact, China started preparing years ago by wisely expanding its crude oil reserves.
According to data from the U.S. Department of Energy, China's daily crude oil purchases averaged about 900,000 barrels between January and August 2025.
Western experts believe that this unprecedented scale of crude oil purchases is more about China's efforts to strengthen its energy security than driven by economic demand — these oils are being injected into strategic reserves.
According to S&P Global Commodity Insight, China injected 530,000 barrels of crude oil into its reserves per day in 2025. Notably, these measures have helped absorb some excess crude supply amid OPEC+ expanding production, while supporting high oil prices. This is undoubtedly beneficial for Russia.
A report published by Bloomberg stated that analysts pointed out: "The scale of China's crude oil purchases far exceeds previous conventional speculative operations when oil prices were below $70 per barrel." They believe that these actions are related to concerns about potential blockades of oil transportation through the Strait of Hormuz and the Strait of Malacca, following statements made by Donald Trump.
According to Reuters, Chinese state-owned oil companies, including Sinopec and CNOOC, are accelerating the construction of crude oil storage facilities within the country. The plan is to add at least 169 million barrels of crude oil storage capacity through 11 projects by the end of 2026.
Reuters cited sources who said that China's goal is to build storage facilities equivalent to half a year's net crude oil imports. Given that China's crude oil imports heavily rely on ship transport, this situation represents a strategic weakness, which China is addressing by expanding reserves and diversifying supply sources.
Previously, China had a dual-track system for crude oil reserves, including strategic crude oil reserves (built before 2019 for emergency situations) and commercial reserves (managed by the National Food and Material Reserve Administration based on refinery needs).
This artificially divided reserve system was clearly inconvenient. Finally, in January of this year, China passed a law to integrate national reserves and commercial reserves into a unified national reserve system. Now, all private and state-owned enterprises must bear the "social responsibility reserve" obligation under strict national supervision.
China has always kept the size of its strategic crude oil reserves confidential. In August 2025, the semi-official China Petroleum and Chemical Industry Federation announced plans to increase the capacity of national reserves to over 1 billion barrels — a scale sufficient to cover three months of China's net crude oil imports, but without specifying exact deadlines for completion.
However, even without considering this plan, it is clear that during President Xi Jinping's tenure, China has built a massive crude oil reserve infrastructure.
The fact that China's crude oil reserve facilities are mainly located in inland areas carries significant geopolitical significance.
Currently, the crude oil required by China's economy is mainly supplied via the "Eastern Route": tankers first arrive at coastal ports, then the crude oil is transported to various demand points.
In the future, when all the reserve facilities in western provinces are completed and filled with crude oil, industrial crude oil demand can be met via the "Western Route."
An interesting phenomenon is that Persian Gulf countries, including Saudi Arabia, are also increasing their crude oil exports to China. Obviously, these countries want to maximize their profits through this opportunity.
Saudi Arabia currently supplies nearly 1.6 million barrels of crude oil per day to China, ranking second. China's largest crude oil supplier is Russia, which supplies nearly 2.2 million barrels of crude oil per day to China, accounting for more than a quarter of China's total crude oil imports.
The third-largest supplier is Iraq, which exports nearly 1.3 million barrels of crude oil per day to China.
Additionally, China also imports crude oil from other channels, such as Malaysia — China's crude oil imports from Malaysia have significantly increased. Part of this imported crude oil may include Iranian and Venezuelan crude oil repackaged in Malaysia. Although the United States continues to try to curb Iranian and Venezuelan crude oil exports through sanctions, it is evident that this effort has not worked.
Original article: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7564358796424790580/
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