An oil tanker unloads crude oil at a terminal in Qingdao Port, east China’s Shandong Province, March 11, 2026.
– | Afp | Getty Images
BEIJING – China stressed Monday that it has enough energy resources as the Iran war restricts oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz and U.S. President Donald Trump pressures Beijing to help secure the crucial waterway.
China’s energy supply is “relatively strong” and provides a “relatively good” basis for responding to external market volatility, National Bureau of Statistics spokesman Fu Linghui told reporters in Mandarin Chinese, translated by CNBC.
The bureau also said China’s domestic crude oil production rose 1.9% year-on-year to 35.73 million tons in the January-February period.
Trump said on Sunday that China should help with efforts to restore oil flows through the Hormuz waterway ahead of his planned trip to Beijing later this month, the Financial Times reported. He also said he may postpone his China travel plans.
Crude oil prices have risen above $100 a barrel and are near a four-year high as oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz have stalled for most countries since the Iran war began more than two weeks ago. However, Iran sent more than 11 million barrels of oil across the strait to China during this time.
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Trump demanded that Beijing help ensure the flow of oil through the strait since China gets 90% of its oil through the waterway, the report said.
However, analysts estimate that China only relies on the strait for about 40% to 50% of its oil imports, noting that oil shipments via Hormuz account for just 6.6% of China’s total energy consumption.
As of January, Beijing had an estimated 1.2 billion barrels of onshore crude oil reserves, one of the largest reserves in the world and enough to meet needs for three to four months.
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