PetroChina forecasts Chinese oil consumption will drop 4.9% this year
Oil demand is plateauing and projected to fall to around 700 million tons by 2030
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[BEIJING] China’s oil consumption is expected to drop in 2026 amid a pivot to new energy and high oil prices due to the Iran war, according to a report published by PetroChina’s research unit.
China, the world’s second-largest oil consumer, is forecast to consume 753 million tons of oil in 2026, a 4.9 per cent drop from 2025 when consumption rose by 3.6 per cent, according to a report by PetroChina Planning and Engineering Institute.
China’s crude production is forecast at 217 million tons in 2026, up 0.5 per cent year on year.
Oil demand is plateauing and projected to fall to around 700 million tons by 2030.
Oil refining capacity is set to reach 963 million tons per annum in 2026, an increase of 15 million tons.
Refined oil consumption is forecast at 324 million tons in 2026, down 6.4 per cent from 346 million tons in 2025, pointing to an accelerating contraction compared with a 3.5 per cent drop last year.
Jet fuel is an exception, with consumption expected to grow 0.2 per cent in 2026.
Gas consumption is forecast to grow 1.3 to 2.5 per cent year on year in 2026, reaching 440–445 billion cubic metres, up from 434.3 bcm in 2025.
Gas demand is expected to rise further to 530–550 bcm by 2030.
New ethylene capacity additions are forecast at 6.72 million tons per annum in 2026, with 4.15 mtpa from naphtha crackers.
Demand for key new materials such as polyolefin elastomers (POE) is forecast to grow 21.4 per cent in 2026, while carbon fibre demand is expected to surge 48.7 per cent.
Domestic self sufficiency in POE and carbon fibre continued to improve in 2025, with domestic production as a percentage of total POE consumption up 11.9 percentage points and carbon fibre up 0.7 percentage points.
The data did not show the total per cent of consumption produced domestically. REUTERS
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