China's total fuel oil imports fell in 2025 after hitting a record high in 2024, as lower import tax rebates weighed on demand from independent refineries. Imports of fuel oil totalled 21.6 million tonnes, or about 376,000 barrels per day, down 10.4 per cent from 2024’s record high of more than 24 million tonnes, data from the General Administration of Customs showed on Tuesday.
China's demand for fuel oil typically comes from independent refiners, who can opt to use it as an alternative feedstock when they run out of crude oil import quotas. An increase in the fuel oil import tax in early 2025, along with lower tax rebates, softened demand.
“China's 2025 decline in fuel oil imports was largely driven by weaker feedstock demand, amid a thinner fuel oil consumption tax rebate rate,” said Emma Li, China senior market analyst at Vortexa.
“Looking into 2026, refiners are expected to continue prioritising crude oil over fuel oil as feedstock until quotas run short, or if the supply of certain crude grades get disrupted, such as heavy Venezuelan crude,” Li said.
China's exports of marine fuels, consisting mainly of very-low-sulphur fuel oil, climbed 11.6 per cent from a year earlier to 20.47 million tonnes in 2025, the customs data showed.
The higher exports, measured mostly by sales from bonded storage for vessels on international routes, emerged as China’s bunker hub Zhoushan continued to expand, overtaking the United Arab Emirates’ Fujairah to become the world’s third-largest ship-refuelling hub in 2025.
China’s Zhoushan port scaled new heights in bunker volumes, which totalled more than eight million tonnes in 2025, based on Zhoushan port website data.
(Reporting by Jeslyn Lerh; Editing by Jan Harvey and Thomas Derpinghaus)