China has opened the taps on its commercial crude reserves, authorizing state-owned refiners to draw down inventories as the Iran conflict continues to throttle one of the world’s most critical oil chokepoints.
The move, reported in April 2026, marks a significant policy shift. Rather than touching its strategic petroleum reserves, Beijing is letting companies like Sinopec and China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC) pull from their own commercial stockpiles.
The numbers behind the drawdown
By early 2026, China had quietly amassed the world’s largest crude stockpiles, estimated at 1.3 to 1.4 billion barrels. That’s roughly three to four months of import coverage for a country that consumed approximately 17 million barrels per day in 2025.
About half of China’s crude imports originated from the Middle East. When the Iran conflict erupted in February 2026 and began severely limiting tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, it disrupted approximately 20% of global oil flows.
