At the heart of China’s energy strategy lies its ambitious, seven-year (2019-2025) domestic oil and gas production campaign launched by the National Energy Administration in response to growing energy security concerns. The results have been promising: since the campaign’s inception China has reversed a domestic production decline and increased output by approximately 480,000 barrels per day. However, the country’s dependency on foreign oil remains high, with imports filling more than 70% of Chinese demand.
The recent reiteration by Iraq Oil Ministry of a 7 million barrels per day (bpd) oil production target within the next five years has spurred activity among Chinese firms that continue to dominate the country’s oil and gas sector. As it stands, more than a third of all Iraq’s proven oil and gas reserves and over two-thirds of its current production are managed by Beijing’s companies, according to industry figures. This translates into Chinese companies having a combined direct share in around 24 billion barrels of reserves and responsibility for production of around 3.0 million bpd. The latest in the very long line of Beijing’s firms to benefit from its ongoing stealthy takeover of Iraq’s huge oil and gas assets is China Huanqiu Contracting & Engineering Company (HQC), which has signed a huge project management consultancy contract for the supergiant West Qurna 1 oilfield.
China’s biggest state-held energy firms are following the demand trends in the world’s top crude oil and natural gas importer.
After decades of growth, Chinese demand for transport fuels is peaking as electric vehicles and LNG-powered trucks are seizing market share from gasoline and diesel. But natural gas demand is only going up, and it’s expected to continue growing for decades.
The Chinese economy will also be key to oil market balances this year, as in any other year. Analysts are eager to see the direction of the economy in 2025 after the lackluster growth in 2024, when China barely hit its GDP growth target amid a series of hits and misses in key economic data points.
It is impossible to say for how long China’s LNG imports will remain subdued, so this is really an opportune time for European buyers to strike years-long deals for liquefied gas. Over the short term, Europe will likely avoid stratospheric gas prices as it starts replenishing its gas inventories—these are currently so low that the continent will need to buy an additional 20 million tons of LNG this year, according to Reuters calculations cited by Bousso in his column. That translates into some 250 cargos, which, thanks to China’s weaker demand, will be more readily available for European buyers.
The tightened U.S. sanctions on Iranian oil flows under the Trump Administration’s renewed maximum pressure campaign have created chaos in Iran’s oil exports to its single biggest buyer, China.
Chinese energy imports broadly fell at the start of 2025, after last year’s record shipments of coal and gas created an overhang of supply and demand for oil continued to ease.
Crude oil imports fell 5 percent on-year in January and February to 83.85 million tons as buyers had to scout for alternative supplies after the US tightened sanctions on Russian and Iranian cargoes.
China’s diesel demand likely peaked in 2019, with gasoline consumption cresting in 2023, Ma Yongsheng, chairman of the nation’s top refiner Sinopec Group, said Wednesday. Still, the nation’s overall oil consumption hasn’t peaked yet, he said, and that’s down to rising demand for chemicals products.
China is the undisputed leader in the transition space, investing the most in wind and solar, along with EVs, and having the greatest generation capacity of the alternative sources of energy. Last year, solar capacity alone surged by 45%. Together with wind and hydropower, total low-carbon generation capacity reached 40% of the country’s total, the Chinese authorities reported last month.
An increase in ship-to-ship transfers, plus the emergence of alternative receiving terminals, led to the jump, according to traders who participate in the market and asked not to be identified because the matter is sensitive.