然而库存显示情况并非简单需求崩跌。卫星监测表明，中国商业库存近周以来反而上升，而非下降。在此前几周，主管机关曾短暂禁止成品油出口，实际上抑制了炼厂进料；随后又取消该政策，显示燃料供给并未极度紧张。中国的储备行为似乎可解释部分变化：过去一年该国被认为每日至少多买约1百万桶以积累库存。因而停止持续向储备中新增进口即可显著降进口，而不压缩基本需求。总战略储备约14亿桶，约2.23亿立方公尺，对比美国约4亿桶（0.64亿立方公尺）和日本约2.6亿桶（0.413亿立方公尺），使库存缓冲论据在数量上居于核心。
国际能源署的初步资料仍显示仅有轻微收缩：3月与4月的需求同比低约11万桶/日，总量约1700万桶/日（约2.70百万立方公尺/日）。这个缺口不足以解释中国所有进口下降。交易者因此指向更深的区域需求放缓与石化链条转向，尤其是在战争开始后煤转化学品利润上升的背景下，石化部门将更多原料转向煤。中国石化在过去五年是石油需求增长的主要推动力。据报有些企业连续60天接近满负荷开工，降低乙烷和石脑油等石油喂料；也可能正在动用难以追踪的半成品化学品存货。再加上战略地穴与国产原油产量增加，仍有不确定性；但可观察到中国在未见极端需求管理的情况下即可大幅降进口，这对油价看涨方并不利。
Oil prices have been kept near the $100-per-barrel line despite 60-plus days of Persian Gulf disruption because several levers are active at once. In addition to visible moves—Hormuz bypass routes, stock releases, and demand destruction from high prices—China’s quiet demand compression is a major unpriced factor. Vortexa estimates crude-and-condensate imports are now about 8.2 million barrels per day, down from roughly 11.7 million barrels per day before the war. The 3.5-million-barrel pullback, about 25%, is equivalent to roughly 0.56 million cubic metres per day (at 0.159 m3 per barrel), nearly Japan’s daily consumption and about twice the volume routed by the UAE Hormuz bypass pipeline. This pressure is reflected in benchmark premia, which have collapsed from around $30 above benchmark in early April to around $1.
Yet inventories belie a simple demand crash story. Satellite checks indicate commercial stockpiles in China have been rising, not falling. In earlier weeks, authorities briefly banned refined-product exports, effectively slowing refinery throughput, then reversed that policy, signaling fuel availability was not critically tight. China’s reserve behavior appears to explain part of the swing: over the past year the country is thought to have bought about one million barrels per day more than domestic need and built stocks. Stopping additional additions to reserves can therefore lower imports sharply without curbing underlying use. Total strategic inventories are around 1.4 billion barrels, about 0.223 billion cubic metres, versus about 400 million barrels in the U.S. (0.064 billion cubic metres) and 260 million in Japan (0.041 billion cubic metres), making the stock buffer argument quantitatively central.
The IEA’s preliminary data still show only a modest contraction: March and April demand were about 110,000 barrels per day lower year-on-year, to roughly 17 million barrels daily, or about 2.70 million cubic metres per day. That gap is insufficient to explain all of China’s import drop. Traders therefore point to weaker regional demand and shifts in the petrochemical chain, where coal-to-chemicals plants have moved from oil feedstocks such as ethane and naphtha to coal as margins improved after the war began. China’s petrochemicals have been the dominant driver of oil demand growth for years. Reports suggest plants have run near full for sixty days, and some believe this also includes running down hard-to-track semi-finished chemical inventories. With strategic caverns and rising domestic output adding uncertainty, uncertainty remains, but the implication is clear: China can lower crude demand sharply without dramatic emergency demand controls, a result that is not positive for oil bulls.