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China remains the world’s largest importer of oil and one of the largest importers of natural gas. Its energy vulnerability is shaped not only by the volume of imports, but also by the geography of supply: a significant share of oil and part of LNG shipments pass through Middle Eastern maritime routes, including the Strait of Hormuz. Therefore, any escalation in the Strait of Hormuz directly affects China’s energy security, logistics, prices, refinery margins and Beijing’s foreign-policy negotiations.
In 2024, China imported around 11.1 million barrels of crude oil per day, covering approximately 74% of the country’s apparent oil consumption. The five largest suppliers — Russia, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Iraq and Oman — accounted for roughly two thirds of China’s oil imports.
Russia became China’s largest oil supplier in 2024: deliveries reached 108.5 million tonnes, or about 2.17 million barrels per day. Saudi Arabia supplied around 78.64 million tonnes, or 1.57 million barrels per day, while Malaysia sharply increased deliveries to 70.38 million tonnes. Reuters separately notes that Malaysia acts as an important transit hub for sanctioned oil, including Iranian and Venezuelan crude.
Strategically, it is important that around 90% of China’s crude oil imports arrived by sea, while the remaining share came overland, primarily from Russia, Kazakhstan and Mongolia. This means that China is partly protected by land-based supplies from Russia, but still remains heavily dependent on maritime routes.
Top 10 Gas Suppliers
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LNG — liquefied natural gas, delivered by sea from export terminals in Australia, Qatar, Russia, Malaysia, the United States and other countries.
Pipeline gas, supplied primarily from Russia, Turkmenistan and Central Asia.
These figures are based on World Integrated Trade Solution / UN Comtrade data: China’s total LNG imports in 2025 amounted to 76.57 million tonnes, with Australia, Qatar, Russia, Malaysia and the United States being the largest suppliers.
However, if one considers total gas imports, including pipeline gas, the role of Russia and Turkmenistan becomes significantly greater. According to Interfax, the Power of Siberia pipeline delivered around 31 billion cubic metres of Russian gas to China in 2024, bringing Russia to a level where it can compete with Turkmenistan as China’s leading pipeline gas supplier.
In other words, China’s gas dependence has a dual structure: maritime LNG depends on the global market and sea routes, while pipeline gas strengthens China’s connection with Russia and Central Asia.
Why the Strait of Hormuz Matters So Much to China
The Strait of Hormuz is one of the key energy chokepoints of the global economy. Oil and gas shipments from the Persian Gulf pass through it. For China, this is especially sensitive because several of its key oil suppliers are located in or near the Gulf region: Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Oman, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait. Collectively, the Persian Gulf countries account for a major share of China’s oil imports.
The situation deteriorated sharply after the beginning of the war around Iran and the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz. Reuters reports that in April 2026 China’s crude oil imports fell to 9.37 million barrels per day, the lowest level in almost four years and around 20% lower than a year earlier. Oil supplies to China passing through Hormuz fell to 648,000 barrels per day, compared with an average of 4.07 million barrels per day in January–March.
This is not merely a logistical problem. It is a blow to China’s model of energy security, which had been built on diversification: Russia, the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, Southeast Asia, discounted sanctioned oil and strategic reserves.
What Is Happening to China Because of the Hormuz Crisis
1. China Is Sharply Reducing Oil Purchases
Reuters writes that after the start of the crisis, China sharply reduced purchases: seaborne crude imports fell from an almost record 11.5 million barrels per day in February to 8 million barrels per day in April, while in May they were expected to decline further to 6.9 million barrels per day, the lowest level in nearly a decade.
This means that China is temporarily behaving not as an aggressive buyer, but as a cautious player. It does not want to buy expensive oil at the peak of prices and is instead using reserves, delaying purchases and seeking alternative routes.
2. China Is Using Strategic and Commercial Reserves
China has enormous oil reserves. Reuters estimates China’s stocks at about 1.3 billion barrels, equivalent to roughly four months of imports. At the same time, China does not disclose the full structure of its reserves, so the outside world does not know exactly how actively Beijing is using them.
Strategically, this gives China a temporary buffer. It can wait out the price shock, reduce purchases and avoid entering into panic competition with Japan, South Korea, India and Europe for limited supplies.
3. Prices Are Pressuring Chinese Refiners
After the crisis began, Brent rose to $126.41 per barrel, while physical oil cargoes traded at huge premiums to futures. This made purchases extremely painful for Chinese refiners, especially independent refineries that had become accustomed to cheap Russian, Iranian or “Malaysian” oil.
If oil is expensive while domestic demand is weak, refining margins decline. Therefore, China prefers to reduce imports, keep fuel inside the country and limit exports of petroleum products. Reuters notes that China’s petroleum product exports in April fell to 3.1 million tonnes, 33% lower than in March and the lowest level in a decade.
4. China Is Looking for Alternatives to Hormuz
Against the backdrop of the crisis, the United States began promoting the idea of increasing American energy supplies to China. According to Reuters, after a meeting between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping in Beijing, the White House stated that Xi had expressed interest in purchasing more American oil in order to reduce China’s dependence on the Strait of Hormuz. Chinese state reports did not confirm this topic, and China’s Foreign Ministry did not comment.
However, there is a political barrier: China has not imported American oil since May 2025 because of 20% tariffs, and their removal would probably be a condition for any significant resumption of purchases. Even at its peak, the United States was not a major oil supplier to China: the maximum was about 395,000 barrels per day in 2020, less than 4% of Chinese imports.
Where China Is Most Vulnerable
China’s main vulnerability is not dependence on one supplier, but the intersection of three factors.
The first factor is maritime dependence.
China receives the overwhelming majority of its oil by sea. Even though Russia supplies part of the oil overland, most volumes still depend on tankers, straits, insurance, fleets and maritime security.
The second factor is the Middle East.
Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Oman, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait are among China’s key suppliers. Any escalation in Hormuz automatically becomes a problem for China’s energy sector.
The third factor is sanctioned oil.
Part of China’s energy model in recent years has been built on buying discounted oil from Russia, Iran and Venezuela. Columbia CGEP notes that oil under US and Western sanctions likely accounted for more than one fifth of China’s imports in 2024.
Why China Is Not “Collapsing” Despite the Crisis
China is not defenceless. Its energy system has several protective layers.
- First, China has large strategic and commercial oil reserves.
- Second, Russia remains the largest oil supplier, and part of Russian deliveries bypass the Hormuz route.
- Third, China is actively diversifying supplies through Brazil, Angola, Malaysia, Oman and other directions.
- Fourth, China can temporarily reduce imports, keep petroleum products inside the country and cut fuel exports.
- Fifth, China is accelerating transport electrification, renewable energy development and domestic production, although this does not eliminate its dependence on oil for transport, chemicals, aviation and industrial logistics.
But this does not change the main point: the Hormuz crisis shows that China’s energy security remains vulnerable to geopolitics.
The Hormuz crisis turns energy into an instrument of pressure on China. For many years, Beijing has been building an energy architecture intended to reduce its dependence on the United States and the Western financial-maritime system. But the war around Iran has shown that even the world’s largest industrial power cannot fully escape the vulnerability of maritime routes.For China, this means several strategic consequences:
Greater dependence on Russia as a land-based and politically compatible supplier of oil and gas.
Accelerated search for alternative routes — Central Asia, Russia, the Arctic, Latin America and Africa.
A stronger role for strategic reserves as an instrument of foreign-policy autonomy.
Likely pressure on refiners due to high prices and problems replacing crude grades.
New negotiations with the United States if Beijing decides to temporarily buy American oil to reduce the Hormuz risk.
Greater interest in the energy transition, not out of idealism, but for reasons of national security.
The crisis in the Strait of Hormuz has struck China at its most sensitive point: not its ability to pay for oil, and not its ability to buy oil, but the reliability of its routes. Therefore, the current situation is not merely an energy shock for Beijing, but a strategic warning: an industrial superpower cannot be fully sovereign while its energy artery passes through a narrow maritime strait that can be closed by war.