OPEC+ faces pressure to balance surplus and market share

At Asia’s largest oil industry meeting this week, two questions framed the discussion: How much crude is China putting into its strategic petroleum reserve, and how long will that buying continue? As the world’s largest oil buyer, China’s stockpiling helps meet its needs and keeps global demand ￰0￱ supply is set to return from OPEC+ and other producers, even as the quick rise of electric vehicles cuts into oil ￰1￱ China’s near-term demand, many traders see a bleak ￰2￱ at the Asia Pacific Petroleum Conference in Singapore, attendees hit a roadblock, according to ￰3￱ keeps its SPR plans secret and long-term, so it’s hard to know how much oil it has or how fast it’s ￰4￱ make estimates, but underground storage hides the real ￰5￱ has built coastal tanks and rock caverns to keep supplies steady and smooth prices, growing fast over the past 20 years as fuel demand ￰6￱ details are scarce, and some oil comes from sanctioned sellers, Russia, Iran, and Venezuela, adding ￰7￱ inventories swell by 130 million barrels since March Antoine Halff, co-founder and chief analyst at geospatial firm Kayrros, estimates that by early September, China’s SPR stood at about 415 million barrels and commercial stocks at about 780 million ￰8￱ said the combined total has risen by close to 130 million barrels since late March, putting above-ground capacity use near 60.5% and leaving room for more ￰9￱ tensions have made energy security a top priority for ￰10￱ imports over 70% of its oil, so stockpiling crude is ￰11￱ prices helped buying, but it’s unclear how much more they’ll add.

“Today, they’re willing to stockpile and willing to increase ￰12￱ is a clear trend,” said Frederic Lasserre, head of research at Gunvor Group, speaking at APPEC by S&P Global Commodity ￰13￱ said March and April were impressive, with inventories rising about 200,000 barrels a day, helping support demand and prices. OPEC+ faces pressure to balance surplus and market share Many in Singapore expect a late-year surplus as the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries restores idled output, choosing to win back market share rather than defend ￰14￱ Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs on ￰15￱ partners have added another source of doubt to ￰16￱ of this makes the size of any surplus hard to judge.

OPEC+ can plan to add supply , but capacity issues may slow the return of ￰17￱ so, Trafigura Group Chief Economist Saad Rahim said China is likely to keep buying if prices stay low. “OPEC has announced a huge amount of increases over the past few months, but a lot of those barrels have yet to really make themselves felt in the physical market,” Rahim said. Instead, he noted, Chinese tanks have been filling, while restocking elsewhere has been ￰18￱ point drew broad agreement on and off stage: a growing electric-vehicle fleet will chip away at a core source of oil ￰19￱ is now the defining feature of consumption trends, said Janet Kong, CEO of Hengli Petrochemical International Pte.

“GDP growth is less commodity-intensive,” she said, noting that countries such as China have leapfrogged technologies like combustion engines and landline phones. “You don’t have to copy everything others did.” Want your project in front of crypto’s top minds? Feature it in our next industry report, where data meets impact.