Iran war: China stockpiled oil before the Iran war, building up far more crude than any other country, according to US government data released this week. The stockpile surged last year, the data stated. This has proven to be a strategic advantage at a time when the energy ecosystem is in a turmoil due to the first disruption and then the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.
US Energy Information Administration (EIA) data showed China added an average of 1.1 million barrels a day of crude to strategic oil inventories in 2025, taking them to nearly 1.4 billion barrels in December. The government data also suggested China continued to build inventories in 2026 before the Iran conflict began in late February.
Apart from the oil stockpile, China also controls more than 70 per cent of global solar, wind, battery and electric vehicle supply chains, all of which are being seen as an advantage.
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Meanwhile, according to a February paper from the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, several factors drove China’s stockpiling surge in 2025. These included relatively low oil prices linked to softer demand, rising geopolitical risks including disruption tied to sanctions on major suppliers such as Russia, Venezuela and Iran, and a new domestic energy law that required companies to hold more reserves.
The EIA said China does not report data on its oil inventories, so it estimated the totals using imports, exports, refining and oil inventory data from third-party and official sources. For this analysis, both government-held and commercial inventories were treated as strategic oil inventories.
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That approach was based on reports that since 2024 China’s national oil companies have been directed to add emergency oil to commercial stockpiles, which effectively act as a second source of strategic inventories. Using that method, the EIA estimated that government-held inventories in China averaged about 360 million barrels in December 2025, close to the nearly 414 million barrels held in the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve during the same period.
The International Energy Agency coordinated the largest-ever release of oil reserves on March 11, making up to 400 million barrels available. China was not part of that release because it is not an IEA member.
The US reserve, which can hold about 714 million barrels, stood at roughly 413 million barrels in December and has slipped to around 409 million after the March release. It remains well below capacity after a record 2022 drawdown following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, with refilling happening gradually as officials wait for lower prices.
Published on: Apr 24, 2026 12:47 PM IST
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