China's crude oil imports will keep climbing toward roughly 570-580 million tonnes in 2026, extending 2025's rebound.

Made

18 Aug 2026

David Lee

Outcome

Unresolved

Beijing's new five-year plan for crude oil and natural gas touts "enhanced self-sufficiency" alongside a 440-million-tonne domestic output target, feeding a narrative of import substitution. Yet the same plan expands LNG and pipeline import capacity with no dependency-ratio cap, matching the trend of imports rising from 553 million tonnes in 2024 to 558 million tonnes in 2025.

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