Why the real oil shock may only begin when China returns in Oil & Companies News 15/06/2026 The oil market has so far avoided a full-blown supply shock through inventory drawdowns, rerouted Middle Eastern flows, higher WoS exports and refinery run cuts across Asia. But the market’s uneasy balance also rests on one often overlooked reality: China has yet to return as a major crude buyer. Key Takeaway: • Chinese refiners have scaled back crude buying from both sanctioned and compliant markets amid elevated oil prices and weak refining economics, keeping China largely absent from the global crude market. • The sharp slowdown in Chinese crude imports is now outpacing refinery run cuts, accelerating inventory drawdowns despite subdued domestic fuel demand. • As independent refiners reduce operations and refined product inventories stop building, state-owned refiners may increasingly find room to raise runs and return to the crude market in the coming weeks. • The current oil market balance remains tighter than it appears. Once China returns to the crude market, physical prices could reprice sharply higher. Physical crude oil benchmarks appear to have settled into a $100-$120/bbl range over the past two months, after the initial wave of panic buying during the first month of the US-Iran war briefly pushed prices above $150/bbl. Beyond SPR releases by multiple countries — particularly the accelerated drawdown in US stockpiles — one key reason oil prices have not sustainably moved above $150/bbl despite a structural supply loss of 8 mbd from the Middle East is the absence of Chinese buying in the market. But how long can China continue to withhold procurement? China’s seaborne crude oil imports — including volumes discharged at Myanmar’s Made Island and crude transiting via the pipeline to Yunnan — are forecast to fall to their lowest level in almost a decade at 6.78 mbd, down from 8.5 mbd in April and an average of 10.66 mbd in 2025. Yet the decline in refinery intake