China’s Unprecedented Oil Stockpiling Sparks Questions if Beijing Is Preparing for War

JPM: “While the world is short on commodities, China is not given they have started stockpiling commodities since 2019 and currently hold 80% of global copper inventories, 70% of corn, 51% of wheat, 46% of soybeans, 70% of crude oil, and over 20% of global aluminum inventories.”

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) March 25, 2022

But if anyone expected China to ease off the hoarding pedal after its massive stockpiling spree, they would be very disappointed and nowhere more so than oil. As John Kemp of JKemp Energy notes, China has been accumulating crude oil inventories to take advantage of relatively low prices and act as an emergency reserve in any future conflict with the United States and its allies.

China’s stocks of crude oil apparently increased by 54 million tonnes (about 400 million barrels or 1.1 million barrels per day) during 2025 after a similar increase in 2024. China’s massive inventory build-up has helped avert the accumulation of stocks in other areas and limited the fall in prices even as Saudi Arabia and its OPEC partners have boosted production.

Inventory accumulation, Kemp writes echoing what we said years ago, has also been described as a “strategic warning indicator” that could indicate the country’s leaders are preparing for a future conflict with the United States over Taiwan.