When the Strait of Hormuz closed in early 2026 and Brent spiked above 120 dollars, the world’s biggest oil importer did something its critics did not expect: it largely stepped out of the market and started living off the stockpile it had spent 2025 building. This dossier reconstructs what China’s buying actually did month by month, why the government reserve was barely touched, and why the restocking phase ahead may matter more than the crisis itself. China publishes no official reserve data, so all storage figures are analyst estimates and are marked as such.<\/p>\n
\u4e2d\u56fd\u306f2025\u5e74\u3001\u4fa1\u683c\u30b5\u30a4\u30af\u30eb\u306e\u5e95\u3067\u6226\u7565\u7684\u8f38\u5165\u56fd\u304c\u53d6\u308b\u3079\u304d\u884c\u52d5\u3001\u3064\u307e\u308a\u6d88\u8cbb\u91cf\u3088\u308a\u3082\u591a\u304f\u306e\u539f\u6cb9\u3092\u8cfc\u5165\u3059\u308b\u3068\u3044\u3046\u884c\u52d5\u3092\u307e\u3055\u306b\u5b9f\u884c\u3057\u305f\u30022025\u5e74\u3092\u901a\u3057\u3066\u3001\u539f\u6cb9\u4fa1\u683c\u304c60\u30c9\u30eb\u8fd1\u8fba\u3067\u3001\u4e2d\u56fd\u306f\u5728\u5eab\u306b1\u65e5\u3042\u305f\u308a\u7d04110\u4e07\u30d0\u30ec\u30eb\u3092\u8ffd\u52a0\u3057\u30012026\u5e74\u3092\u8fce\u3048\u308b\u6642\u70b9\u3067\u3001\u539f\u6cb9\u8caf\u8535\u7dcf\u91cf\u306f13\u51049000\u4e07\uff5e14\u5104\u30d0\u30ec\u30eb\u3068\u63a8\u5b9a\u3055\u308c\u3001\u3053\u308c\u306f\u7d04120\u65e5\u5206\u306e\u7d14\u8f38\u5165\u91cf\u306b\u76f8\u5f53\u3059\u308b\u3068\u3001EIA\u306e\u63a8\u8a08\u304c\u5831\u544a\u3057\u3066\u3044\u308b\u3002 \u30a2\u30af\u30b7\u30aa\u30b9<\/a> \u305d\u3057\u3066\u5206\u6790\u306b\u3088\u3063\u3066 \u30d9\u30a4\u30ab\u30fc\u30fb\u30a4\u30f3\u30b9\u30c6\u30a3\u30c6\u30e5\u30fc\u30c8<\/a>. \u3053\u308c\u3089\u306e\u6570\u5b57\u306f\u30a2\u30ca\u30ea\u30b9\u30c8\u306e\u63a8\u5b9a\u5024\u3067\u3059\u3002\u4e2d\u56fd\u306f\u6e96\u5099\u9810\u91d1\u306e\u6c34\u6e96\u3092\u56fd\u5bb6\u6a5f\u5bc6\u3068\u3057\u3066\u6271\u3063\u3066\u304a\u308a\u3001\u3053\u306e\u653f\u7b56\u306b\u3064\u3044\u3066\u306f\u3001\u95a2\u9023\u8cc7\u6599\u3067\u8a73\u3057\u304f\u691c\u8a0e\u3057\u307e\u3057\u305f\u3002 \u4e2d\u56fd\u304c\u4e88\u5099\u8cc7\u6e90\u91cf\u3092\u516c\u8868\u3057\u306a\u3044\u7406\u7531<\/a>.<\/p>\n The crisis that tested the position began in late February 2026, when coordinated US and Israeli strikes on Iran triggered the closure of the Strait of Hormuz to normal transit. More than 90 percent of the strait’s roughly 10 million barrels a day of flows were restricted; Brent crossed 100 dollars on 8 March for the first time in four years and peaked around 126 dollars, and the IEA called it the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market, per the crisis reporting compiled by \u30d6\u30eb\u30c3\u30ad\u30f3\u30b0\u30b9\u7814\u7a76\u6240<\/a>. The IEA’s 32 members responded with a 400 million barrel coordinated release, the largest in the agency’s history, per \u30a2\u30eb\u30b8\u30e3\u30b8\u30fc\u30e9<\/a>, \u79c1\u305f\u3061\u304c\u53d6\u308a\u4e0a\u3052\u305f\u30a4\u30d9\u30f3\u30c8 IEA\u7dca\u6025\u5099\u84c4\u306b\u95a2\u3059\u308b\u8cc7\u6599<\/a>.<\/p>\n The monthly sequence matters because the popular version, China stopped buying, flattens a more instructive story. February imports ran at 11.7 million barrels a day. By April, customs data showed roughly 9.25 million, down 2.4 million year on year, per Reuters columnist Clyde Russell’s calculations. Yet even in April, China was still stockpiling: refinery runs were low enough that an estimated 430,000 barrels a day still flowed into storage on Russell’s arithmetic, with Vortexa putting the April build higher at 580,000 barrels a day. The machine slowed before it reversed.<\/p>\n 5\u6708\u306f\u9006\u8ee2\u3057\u305f\u3002\u7a0e\u95a2\u306f1\u65e5\u3042\u305f\u308a780\u4e07\u30d0\u30ec\u30eb\u306e\u8f38\u5165\u3092\u8a18\u9332\u3057\u305f\u304c\u3001\u3053\u308c\u306f2017\u5e7410\u6708\u4ee5\u6765\u306e\u6700\u4f4e\u6708\u9593\u6570\u5024\u3067\u3042\u308b\u3002 CNBC<\/a> and the American Petroleum Institute’s tracking, while ship-tracker Kpler measured arrivals even lower at 6.78 million, per OilPrice\uff08Yahoo Finance\u7d4c\u7531\uff09<\/a>. With refinery runs near 13.5 million barrels a day on Kpler’s estimates, the gap could only come from inventory: June saw an estimated 3 million barrels a day drawn from storage, per \u30d6\u30eb\u30fc\u30e0\u30d0\u30fc\u30b0<\/a>. \u4e2d\u56fd\u306f\u308f\u305a\u304b4\u30f6\u6708\u3067\u30011\u65e5\u3042\u305f\u308a\u7d0450\u4e07\u30d0\u30ec\u30eb\u306e\u539f\u6cb9\u751f\u7523\u91cf\u304b\u3089\u3001\u305d\u306e6\u500d\u306e\u751f\u7523\u91cf\u3078\u3068\u6025\u6fc0\u306b\u5909\u5316\u3057\u305f\u3002.<\/p>\n Where the barrels came from is the detail that reveals the strategy. The drawdown fell overwhelmingly on commercial and corporate inventories, including more than 46 million barrels of Iranian crude that had accumulated in floating storage and bonded tanks at ports like Dalian and Zhoushan. Shandong’s independent teapot refiners ran down their cheap stored Iranian feedstock, with some reportedly holding crude only into early June before cutting runs, per \u30a2\u30eb\u30b8\u30e3\u30b8\u30fc\u30e9<\/a> \u305d\u3057\u3066\u30af\u30d7\u30e9\u30fc\u6c0f\u3002EIA\u306e\u63a8\u5b9a\u306b\u3088\u308b\u3068\u7d043\u51046000\u4e07\u30d0\u30ec\u30eb\u306b\u53ca\u3076\u653f\u5e9c\u306e\u6226\u7565\u77f3\u6cb9\u5099\u84c4\u81ea\u4f53\u306f\u3001\u307b\u3068\u3093\u3069\u624b\u3064\u304b\u305a\u306e\u307e\u307e\u6b8b\u3055\u308c\u305f\u3068\u5831\u3058\u3089\u308c\u3066\u3044\u308b\u3002\u5317\u4eac\u306f\u5546\u696d\u7528\u5099\u84c4\u3092\u4f7f\u3044\u679c\u305f\u3057\u3001\u56fd\u5bb6\u5099\u84c4\u306f\u6e29\u5b58\u3057\u305f\u3002.<\/p>\n \u30a2\u30ca\u30ea\u30b9\u30c8\u306e\u898b\u89e3\u306f\u3001\u82e6\u5883\u3067\u306f\u306a\u304f\u6226\u7565\u306b\u96c6\u4e2d\u3057\u3066\u3044\u308b\u3002\u30e1\u30eb\u30af\u30ea\u30a2\u306e\u6700\u9ad8\u7d4c\u55b6\u8cac\u4efb\u8005\u30de\u30eb\u30b3\u30fb\u30c7\u30e5\u30ca\u30f3\u6c0f\u306f4\u6708\u306eFT\u30b3\u30e2\u30c7\u30a3\u30c6\u30a3\u30b5\u30df\u30c3\u30c8\u3067\u3001\u4e2d\u56fd\u306f\u5371\u6a5f\u524d\u306e\u5546\u696d\u5728\u5eab\u3092\u53d6\u308a\u5d29\u3057\u3066\u304a\u308a\u3001\u4fa1\u683c\u304c\u6025\u9a30\u3059\u308b\u306b\u3064\u308c\u3066\u4e8b\u5b9f\u4e0a\u5e02\u5834\u304b\u3089\u64a4\u9000\u3057\u305f\u3068\u8ff0\u3079\u3001\u6570\u9031\u9593\u4ee5\u5185\u306b\u8cb7\u3044\u304c\u518d\u958b\u3059\u308b\u3068\u4e88\u6e2c\u3057\u305f\u3002 \u539f\u6cb9\u4fa1\u683c<\/a>. Rystad Energy’s Ye Lin read the drawdown as rational margin management: letting inventories fall gradually rather than bidding into a tight market with refining margins deeply negative, per \u904b<\/a>. 60\u30c9\u30eb\u3067\u8cb7\u3044\u96c6\u3081\u305f\u5099\u84c4\u306f\u4fdd\u967a\u3067\u3042\u308a\u3001\u5371\u6a5f\u306f\u307e\u3055\u306b\u305d\u306e\u4fdd\u967a\u91d1\u8acb\u6c42\u3060\u3063\u305f\u3002.<\/p>\n The behaviour also stabilised the global market. China’s import cut accounted for roughly three quarters of the worldwide decline in crude buying during the crisis, per \u904b<\/a>, which is a large part of why Brent peaked near 126 dollars rather than the 200 dollar scenarios some banks war-gamed. A price-sensitive superbuyer that withdraws demand at the top functions, in effect, as a shock absorber for everyone else. As Rush Doshi of the Council on Foreign Relations told CNBC in March, “China has taken the last 20 years to reduce some of its dependence on maritime oil flows.” The crisis demonstrated how much optionality that two-decade effort has bought.<\/p>\n The forward risk is the unwind. Kpler’s Muyu Xu argued that the real oil shock may only begin when China returns to buying, per \u30af\u30d7\u30e9\u30fc<\/a>, and JPMorgan expects imports to rebound from August, driven by state-directed restocking rather than underlying demand. Refilling a drawn-down commercial system while rebuilding toward the government’s storage ambitions means sustained incremental buying into a market still normalising after the crisis, exactly as Aramco and OPEC+ push returning supply into Asia, a collision we analyse in our companion piece on \u4e2d\u56fd\u306f2026\u5e74\u306b\u306a\u3063\u3066\u3082\u5916\u8ca8\u6e96\u5099\u3092\u7a4d\u307f\u5897\u3057\u7d9a\u3051\u3066\u3044\u308b\u306e\u304b<\/a>. \u30a8\u30cd\u30eb\u30ae\u30fc\u5206\u91ce\u306eB2B\u4e8b\u696d\u8005\u306b\u3068\u3063\u3066\u3001\u30bf\u30a4\u30df\u30f3\u30b0\u306e\u30b7\u30b0\u30ca\u30eb\u306f\u660e\u78ba\u3060\u3002\u590f\u306e\u7d42\u308f\u308a\u304b\u3089\u306e\u4e2d\u56fd\u306e\u5728\u5eab\u88dc\u5145\u9700\u8981\u306f\u3001\u4f9b\u7d66\u904e\u5270\u304c\u4e88\u60f3\u3055\u308c\u308b2026\u5e74\u306e\u5e02\u5834\u306b\u304a\u3044\u3066\u3001\u6570\u5c11\u306a\u3044\u5f37\u6c17\u6750\u6599\u306e\u4e00\u3064\u3068\u306a\u3063\u3066\u3044\u308b\u3002.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u4e2d\u56fd\u306f2026\u5e74\u306e\u30db\u30eb\u30e0\u30ba\u5371\u6a5f\u306e\u9593\u3001\u77f3\u6cb9\u5099\u84c4\u3092\u505c\u6b62\u3057\u305f\u306e\u304b\uff1f\u6708\u3054\u3068\u306e\u8f38\u5165\u30fb\u8caf\u8535\u30c7\u30fc\u30bf\u3001\u653f\u5e9c\u306e\u6226\u7565\u77f3\u6cb9\u5099\u84c4\uff08SPR\uff09\u304c\u624b\u3064\u304b\u305a\u306e\u307e\u307e\u3060\u3063\u305f\u7406\u7531\u3001\u305d\u3057\u3066\u4eca\u5f8c\u306e\u518d\u5099\u84c4\u30ea\u30b9\u30af\u306b\u3064\u3044\u3066\u3002.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":1690,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"p54_article_data":"{\"meta\":{\"kicker\":\"Insight \u00b7 Analysis\",\"topics\":[\"Analysis\"],\"title\":\"Did China Stop Stockpiling Oil During the Hormuz Crisis? What the 2026 Data Actually Shows\",\"dek\":\"When the Strait of Hormuz closed in early 2026 and Brent spiked above 120 dollars, the world's biggest oil importer did something its critics did not expect: it largely stepped out of the market and started living off the stockpile it had spent 2025 building. This dossier reconstructs what China's buying actually did month by month, why the government reserve was barely touched, and why the restocking phase ahead may matter more than the crisis itself. China publishes no official reserve data, so all storage figures are analyst estimates and are marked as such.\",\"date\":\"11 July 2026\",\"readTime\":\"9 min read\",\"author\":\"Project 54\"},\"quickAnswer\":{\"q\":\"Did China stop stockpiling oil during the 2026 Strait of Hormuz crisis?\",\"a\":\"Yes, and it went further: China first slowed its stockpiling, still adding an estimated 430,000 to 580,000 barrels a day to storage in April per Reuters and Vortexa calculations, then flipped to net drawdowns of its roughly 1.4 billion barrel inventory as crude imports collapsed about 40 percent, from 11.7 million barrels a day in February to 7.8 million in May, the lowest since 2017 per customs data. The draws came overwhelmingly from commercial and corporate stocks; analysts report the government strategic petroleum reserve of roughly 360 million barrels was left nearly untouched. China publishes no official reserve figures, so all storage numbers are analyst estimates. Kpler, JPMorgan and Mercuria expected buying to return from around August 2026, a state-directed restocking wave that could itself become the next price shock.\"},\"takeaways\":[\"China entered the crisis prepared: through 2025 it added roughly 1.1 million barrels a day to inventories at around 60 dollar oil, reaching an estimated 1.39 to 1.4 billion barrels, about 120 days of net imports, per EIA estimates cited by Axios and the Baker Institute.\",\"The reversal was fast but not instant: in April, refiners were still adding an estimated 430,000 to 580,000 barrels a day to storage per Reuters and Vortexa, even as imports fell 2.4 million barrels a day year on year.\",\"By May, imports had collapsed to 7.8 million barrels a day per customs data, the lowest since October 2017, with Kpler tracking even lower, and June saw an estimated 3 million barrels a day drawn from storage per Bloomberg.\",\"The draws came from commercial and bonded stocks, including Iranian crude held in floating and bonded storage; the roughly 360 million barrel government SPR was reportedly left nearly untouched, per EIA estimates and analyst reporting.\",\"China's withdrawal cushioned the world: its import cut was roughly three quarters of the global decline, per Fortune, helping keep Brent from the 200 dollar scenarios some predicted, and its return to buying is the next thing to watch.\"],\"sections\":[{\"id\":\"setup\",\"q\":\"What position did China hold going into the crisis?\",\"h\":\"The 2025 Build: Insurance Bought at 60 Dollars\",\"p\":[\"China spent 2025 doing exactly what a strategic importer is supposed to do at the bottom of a price cycle: buying more crude than it burned. Through 2025 it added roughly 1.1 million barrels a day to inventories with oil near 60 dollars, entering 2026 with total crude in storage estimated at 1.39 to 1.4 billion barrels, equivalent to roughly 120 days of net imports, per EIA estimates reported by Axios<\/a> and analysis by the Baker Institute<\/a>. Those figures are analyst estimates: China treats reserve levels as a state secret, a policy we examined in our companion dossier on why China does not publish its reserve levels<\/a>.\",\"The crisis that tested the position began in late February 2026, when coordinated US and Israeli strikes on Iran triggered the closure of the Strait of Hormuz to normal transit. More than 90 percent of the strait's roughly 10 million barrels a day of flows were restricted; Brent crossed 100 dollars on 8 March for the first time in four years and peaked around 126 dollars, and the IEA called it the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market, per the crisis reporting compiled by Brookings<\/a>. The IEA's 32 members responded with a 400 million barrel coordinated release, the largest in the agency's history, per Al Jazeera<\/a>, an event we covered in our IEA emergency reserves dossier<\/a>.\"]},{\"id\":\"what-happened\",\"q\":\"What did China's buying actually do, month by month?\",\"h\":\"Slow, Then Flip: From 430,000 Barrels a Day In to 3 Million Out\",\"p\":[\"The monthly sequence matters because the popular version, China stopped buying, flattens a more instructive story. February imports ran at 11.7 million barrels a day. By April, customs data showed roughly 9.25 million, down 2.4 million year on year, per Reuters columnist Clyde Russell's calculations. Yet even in April, China was still stockpiling: refinery runs were low enough that an estimated 430,000 barrels a day still flowed into storage on Russell's arithmetic, with Vortexa putting the April build higher at 580,000 barrels a day. The machine slowed before it reversed.\",\"May was the flip. Customs recorded imports of 7.8 million barrels a day, the lowest monthly figure since October 2017, per CNBC<\/a> and the American Petroleum Institute's tracking, while ship-tracker Kpler measured arrivals even lower at 6.78 million, per OilPrice via Yahoo Finance<\/a>. With refinery runs near 13.5 million barrels a day on Kpler's estimates, the gap could only come from inventory: June saw an estimated 3 million barrels a day drawn from storage, per Bloomberg<\/a>. In four months China swung from building nearly half a million barrels a day to drawing six times that.\",\"Where the barrels came from is the detail that reveals the strategy. The drawdown fell overwhelmingly on commercial and corporate inventories, including more than 46 million barrels of Iranian crude that had accumulated in floating storage and bonded tanks at ports like Dalian and Zhoushan. Shandong's independent teapot refiners ran down their cheap stored Iranian feedstock, with some reportedly holding crude only into early June before cutting runs, per Al Jazeera<\/a> and Kpler. The government strategic petroleum reserve itself, roughly 360 million barrels on EIA estimates, was reportedly left nearly untouched. Beijing spent the commercial buffer and preserved the sovereign one.\"],\"table\":{\"cols\":[\"Month (2026)\",\"Crude imports (mb\/d)\",\"Storage flow (analyst estimates)\"],\"rows\":[[\"February\",\"11.7 (customs)\",\"Building, pre-crisis pace ~1 mb\/d\"],[\"March\",\"Crisis begins; Brent peaks ~126 dollars\",\"Buying slows as prices spike\"],[\"April\",\"~9.25 (customs, per Reuters\/Russell)\",\"Still adding ~430-580 kb\/d (Russell; Vortexa)\"],[\"May\",\"7.8 (customs, lowest since Oct 2017); 6.78 per Kpler\",\"Net draw begins; teapots burn stored Iranian crude\"],[\"June\",\"~8 (estimates)\",\"~3 mb\/d drawn from storage (Bloomberg); SPR ~untouched\"],[\"From August (expected)\",\"Rebound forecast\",\"State-directed restocking, per JPMorgan\"]]}},{\"id\":\"interpretation\",\"q\":\"Was this weakness or strategy?\",\"h\":\"The Price-Sensitive Superbuyer: Why Stepping Back Was the Plan\",\"p\":[\"Analyst readings converged on strategy, not distress. Mercuria chief executive Marco Dunand told the FT Commodities Summit in April that China had been drawing down pre-crisis commercial stocks and had effectively stepped back from the market as prices surged, predicting a return to buying within weeks, per OilPrice<\/a>. Rystad Energy's Ye Lin read the drawdown as rational margin management: letting inventories fall gradually rather than bidding into a tight market with refining margins deeply negative, per Fortune<\/a>. The stockpile bought at 60 dollars was insurance; the crisis was the claim.\",\"The behaviour also stabilised the global market. China's import cut accounted for roughly three quarters of the worldwide decline in crude buying during the crisis, per Fortune<\/a>, which is a large part of why Brent peaked near 126 dollars rather than the 200 dollar scenarios some banks war-gamed. A price-sensitive superbuyer that withdraws demand at the top functions, in effect, as a shock absorber for everyone else. As Rush Doshi of the Council on Foreign Relations told CNBC in March, \\\"China has taken the last 20 years to reduce some of its dependence on maritime oil flows.\\\" The crisis demonstrated how much optionality that two-decade effort has bought.\",\"The forward risk is the unwind. Kpler's Muyu Xu argued that the real oil shock may only begin when China returns to buying, per Kpler<\/a>, and JPMorgan expects imports to rebound from August, driven by state-directed restocking rather than underlying demand. Refilling a drawn-down commercial system while rebuilding toward the government's storage ambitions means sustained incremental buying into a market still normalising after the crisis, exactly as Aramco and OPEC+ push returning supply into Asia, a collision we analyse in our companion piece on whether China is still adding to its reserves in 2026<\/a>. For energy B2B operators, the timing signal is concrete: Chinese restocking demand from late summer is one of the few bullish counterweights in an otherwise oversupplied 2026 market.\"]}],\"media\":{\"image\":{\"src\":\"https:\/\/projectfifty4.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/14.jpg\",\"label\":\"Crude storage at twilight: tank farms like these, commercial rather than sovereign, absorbed the Hormuz shock\",\"credit\":\"Project 54\"},\"infographicLabel\":\"China during the Hormuz crisis: imports 11.7 to 7.8 mb\/d Feb-May, ~3 mb\/d storage draws by June, government SPR ~untouched (analyst estimates)\",\"pdf\":{\"href\":\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/did-china-stop-stockpiling-oil-hormuz-crisis.pdf\",\"title\":\"Did China Stop Stockpiling Oil During the Hormuz Crisis? Briefing Deck\",\"meta\":\"Project 54\"}},\"poll\":{\"q\":\"What is the most important lesson from China's crisis behaviour?\",\"note\":\"Your selection maps how you read the strategy. No vote tallies, this is a reflection tool.\",\"options\":[{\"id\":\"a\",\"label\":\"Build the buffer before the crisis, at low prices\",\"insight\":\"The insurance reading. The 2025 build at 60 dollars is what made stepping back at 120 dollars possible. Optionality is bought in calm markets, never during the storm.\"},{\"id\":\"b\",\"label\":\"Spend the commercial buffer, protect the sovereign one\",\"insight\":\"The tiering reading. Beijing drew bonded and corporate stocks while leaving the government SPR nearly untouched, preserving the last-resort reserve for a longer or worse crisis.\"},{\"id\":\"c\",\"label\":\"Price discipline beats panic buying\",\"insight\":\"The market reading. By refusing to bid into a 120 dollar market, China cushioned global prices and protected its own refining margins. Withdrawal was leverage, not weakness.\"},{\"id\":\"d\",\"label\":\"Watch the restocking, not the crisis\",\"insight\":\"The forward reading. Kpler and JPMorgan both point to the return of Chinese buying from around August as the next structural force on prices, potentially the deferred shock.\"}]},\"faq\":[{\"q\":\"How much oil did China have in storage when the Hormuz crisis began?\",\"a\":\"Analyst estimates put China's total crude inventories at roughly 1.39 to 1.4 billion barrels entering 2026, equivalent to about 120 days of net imports, after adding roughly 1.1 million barrels a day through 2025, per EIA estimates cited by Axios and the Baker Institute. Of that, the government strategic petroleum reserve is estimated at roughly 360 million barrels. China publishes no official figures, so all of these are estimates.\"},{\"q\":\"How far did China's oil imports fall during the crisis?\",\"a\":\"From 11.7 million barrels a day in February 2026 to 7.8 million in May per customs data, a roughly 40 percent collapse and the lowest monthly reading since October 2017. Ship-tracker Kpler measured May arrivals even lower, at 6.78 million barrels a day. The two figures differ because customs records cleared volumes while trackers count physical arrivals; both directions agree.\"},{\"q\":\"Did China use its strategic petroleum reserve during the crisis?\",\"a\":\"Reportedly almost not at all. The drawdowns came overwhelmingly from commercial and corporate inventories, including bonded storage of Iranian crude at ports like Dalian and Zhoushan and the stocks held by Shandong's independent refiners. The government SPR of roughly 360 million barrels on EIA estimates was left nearly untouched, preserving the sovereign buffer for a deeper emergency. All storage figures are analyst estimates.\"},{\"q\":\"Why did China stop buying instead of paying up for crude?\",\"a\":\"Price sensitivity and margin arithmetic. Chinese buyers withdrew rather than chase barrels above 100 dollars, and Rystad Energy's Ye Lin noted that with refining margins deeply negative it was rational to let inventories fall rather than bid into a tight market. The 2025 stockpile, built near 60 dollars, existed precisely so that China could step back when prices spiked, which is also why its withdrawal helped cap the global price peak.\"},{\"q\":\"When will China start stockpiling oil again?\",\"a\":\"JPMorgan expects Chinese imports to rebound from August 2026, driven by state-directed restocking rather than demand, and Mercuria's Marco Dunand predicted in April that buying would return quickly once prices normalised. Kpler has argued the real oil shock may only begin when China returns to the market, because refilling a drawn-down system means sustained incremental buying colliding with OPEC+ supply returning to Asia.\"}],\"newsletter\":{\"kicker\":\"The Energy Growth Brief\",\"title\":[\"Get the next\",\"intelligence drop\"],\"body\":\"Join energy and industrial leaders getting our marketing, AI-growth and revenue-architecture intelligence, direct, no filler.\",\"cadence\":\"Twice monthly\",\"reach\":\"Gulf \u00b7 MENA \u00b7 Asia \u00b7 Europe\",\"cta\":\"Subscribe\",\"note\":\"No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. We read every reply.\",\"success\":\"You're on the list\",\"successBody\":\"Welcome to The Energy Growth Brief, watch your inbox for the next dispatch.\"},\"related\":[{\"title\":\"Is China Still Adding to Its Oil Reserves in 2026? The Record Build, the Hormuz Shock and What Comes Next\",\"topic\":\"Analysis\",\"href\":\"https:\/\/projectfifty4.com\/is-china-still-stockpiling-oil-2026\/\"},{\"title\":\"How Many Days of Supply Does China Hold? The Real Numbers Behind the World's Biggest Oil Stockpile\",\"topic\":\"Analysis\",\"href\":\"https:\/\/projectfifty4.com\/china-oil-reserve-days-of-supply\/\"},{\"title\":\"Why Doesn't China Publish Its Oil Reserve Levels? Inside Beijing's Strategic Opacity\",\"topic\":\"Analysis\",\"href\":\"https:\/\/projectfifty4.com\/why-china-doesnt-publish-oil-reserves\/\"},{\"title\":\"IEA Emergency Oil Reserves in 2026: The Largest Coordinated Release in History\",\"topic\":\"Analysis\",\"href\":\"https:\/\/projectfifty4.com\/iea-emergency-oil-reserves-2026\/\"}]}","p54_faq":"","p54_media":"","p54_comments_enabled":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[92,125],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-analysis","category-strategy"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/projectfifty4.com\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/projectfifty4.com\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/projectfifty4.com\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projectfifty4.com\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projectfifty4.com\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3608"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/projectfifty4.com\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3608\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projectfifty4.com\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1690"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/projectfifty4.com\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projectfifty4.com\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/projectfifty4.com\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\u3086\u3063\u304f\u308a\u3001\u305d\u3057\u3066\u53cd\u8ee2\uff1a\u65e5\u91cf43\u4e07\u30d0\u30ec\u30eb\u306e\u6d41\u5165\u304b\u3089300\u4e07\u30d0\u30ec\u30eb\u306e\u6d41\u51fa\u3078<\/h2>\n
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