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My understanding is we haven’t gotten to full Hormuz apocalypse mode because the Chinese have a ton of stockpiles. And the Red Sea has been an option. Those co

My understanding is we haven’t gotten to full Hormuz apocalypse mode because the Chinese have a ton of stockpiles. And the Red Sea has been an option. Those conditions seem to be changing.

AnotherGoodName 21d ago
The Houthis also explicitly allow Chinese vessels and Chinese ships have been able to traverse the red sea without issue. Which means China actually has more ability to access oil than other countries right now. I suspect the Chinese won’t be happy with the pipeline and refinery attacks on Saudi Arabia but i also assume that there will still be plenty of Chinese bound oil for the foreseeable future.
- 0xbadcafebee 21d ago
  China has a backdoor for oil from Russia and Iran (https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/the-axis-of-evasion-behind-chinas-oil-trade-with-iran-and-russia/ https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/the-ax...) which is part of what feeds their massive reserves. Russia and Iran have an interest in continuing this trade since they're sanctioned by the US and most crude is priced in USD. It's not a major source of their oil due to threats of sanctions from the US, but in a pinch they can ramp it up if needed.
bijowo1676 21d ago
the reason China was using stockpiles is they want to time the gasoline price shock right to the midterm elections. The moment they stop using stockpiles and start purchasing the prices will jump
- DrScientist 21d ago
  Blaming the current situation on the actions of China is beyond bizarre.
  - bluGill 21d ago
    China has some influence. They did do what was said - but only if you take the absolute most charitable reading (which is a expected here).
    - DrScientist 21d ago
      Eh? They didn't/aren't using their stockpiles to anywhere near the extent the US has! There reserves are much bigger - they have about a years supply - yet they used less in absolute terms than the US! What they did was aggressively reduce demand by accelerating the switch to EV's and firing up a few more coal powerstations. In terms of influencing the midterms - I suspect China isn't anywhere near the front of the queue in hoping Trump get's a beating given the chaos he is causing. Complaining about foreign interference is ironically straight from the Hillary playbook.
      - bluGill 21d ago
        They are strategically using their stockpiles. There are a lot of factors in their strategy and some of them conflict. This has an effect on the world market. How much of their strategy is to change elections vs other concerns I don't know.
        DrScientist 18d ago
        Frankly if I was China, I'd be conflicted about the mid-terms - Trump is currently leading the US to disastrous wars - kinetic and trade, pissing off his closest allies, under-mining the dollar, and making China look a sane and stable partner. On the other hand the world might be better off if he was more constrained post mid-terms. Frankly, in terms of countries wanting Trump to take a beating in the mid-terms, I'd put countries like Canada and most of Europe way ahead of China there. And in terms of China's energy strategy - China is the worlds biggest net importer of crude therefore China's strategy is going to be focussed on managing that first and foremost. I think it's the US who hoped that the oil crisis would impact China much more - this is the US making, not China.
- softwaredoug 21d ago
  Well roughly now would be when you’d time a huge shock OTOH midterm generic ballots are much more stable than top line presidential horse race polling. So it might only matter at the margins.
- deleted 21d ago
  [deleted]
- lowbloodsugar 21d ago
  lol. The orange man is doing more damage to the USA than China could ever do short of actual war. He is destroying the US militarily, economically and politically. They emphatically support his efforts.
  - kadoban 21d ago
    At some point they might prefer stability and sanity. I would bet that at this point they don't care much either way. China is playing long, most of the ~unchanging things are in their favor and the US already proved that they're unreliable. People won't forget that soon even if Trump is gone.
    - LarsKrimi 21d ago
      Stability and sanity is not happening whether the conflicts stop in Yemen+Hormuz or not. At that point it's just going to go back to tarriff wars and new terror campaigns that the US admin will start somewhere else
      - kadoban 21d ago
        The context of this is which party China would prefer to win the midterms. The dems winning would distract Trump from being able to fuck up the rest of the world a bit. My bet would be that China doesn't care much either way, they win regardless.
        LarsKrimi 21d ago
        We agree that China won't care long term. They cannot lose in the current setup In my view the worst that can happen for China is that Trump gets limited by anything. He's hurting US relations more than he's hurting China short or long-term. Relations take longer to build than trade "Don't interrupt your opponent when they're making a mistake"
        kadoban 21d ago
- Frieren 21d ago
  > time the gasoline price shock right to the midterm elections. Donald Trump can end this at any time if he wants. It would have been better to not have started it, thou. Less killing of innocent people, less spending on weapons, better mental health for USA soldiers... And why is China suddenly at fault for America's actions?
  - LtWorf 21d ago
    He can't. Bibi is in charge.
    - sentientlaserbe 21d ago
      Partially true. Seems most likely that Trump didn't like the Iranian provisions for reparations to end the war. A hard stance they've taken, one Trump would never go for (because of how incompetent it would make him look), and here we are.
  - toast0 21d ago
    > Donald Trump can end this at any time if he wants. I'm not really sure that's true. The US is no longer a credible negotiator. I'm not sure negotiating a peace would necessarily end the situation immediately.
    - oblio 20d ago
      > The US is no longer a credible negotiator. The US isn't even negotiating. Fairly sure they don't have a full negotiating team and they're doing it via 1-2 Trump flunkeys and Pakistan intermediating.
- cmrdporcupine 21d ago
  It's so amazing to watch people (presumably Americans) over and over make everything about American domestic politics. That the only way to explain Trump's behaviour is on the domestic terms that Americans know and are comfortable with. I see this over and over again with the Canada stuff. Or Greenland stuff. Not taking it seriously because "oh that's just Trump deflecting cuz of [Epstein|Midterms|etc]." Meanwhile the actual blast radius here is far far far outside of the domestic arena. When will people just take this guy at his word? He says he wants to conquer or do X Y and Z. That's it. He said those things. Believe him. Stop trying to make it about yourself. (And also he wants to make personal money off manipulating the stock market and oil prices.) It's not a good look, esp to the victims of Trump outside the US who have no power to vote in American elections and yet are victims of American power.
  - toast0 21d ago
    > He said those things. Believe him. He says a lot of things he doesn't do though. Beleiving him is a bad heuristic and so is disbeleiving him.
ericmay 21d ago
[flagged]
- pphysch 21d ago
  Why can Israel have a nuclear weapon? It is also an insanely violent ethno-theocratic regime.
  - ericmay 21d ago
    Besides the point and whataboutism, but I'm not advocating that Israel should have nuclear weapons. They do, and I'm not sure there's much we can do about it at this point. Same with North Korea. I'm opposed to the proliferation of nuclear weapons and just because one country has one doesn't mean other countries should go and get them too.
    - nemomarx 21d ago
      Maybe we should have brokered some kinda deal with Iran to prevent them getting a nuclear weapon then, huh. At this point they'd be fools to not pursue getting one, and we killed everyone in a position of authority who was rational about it. Cats out of the bag, one more nuclear rogue state.
      - ericmay 21d ago
        > Maybe we should have brokered some kinda deal with Iran to prevent them getting a nuclear weapon then, huh. Maybe we should have brokered some kind of deal with Russia to prevent them from invading Ukraine. Do you trust American intelligence 100% to verify Iran is not building a nuclear bomb? And if they weren't, why also were they funding these militant groups? What's the point? It's Neo-colonialism in the Middle East. > At this point they'd be fools to not pursue getting one, and we killed everyone in a position of authority who was rational about it. The leadership wasn't really rational in your western sense. I'm not sure where you are coming up with that. If they were rational they wouldn't be murdering their own civilians, chanting death to Israel and death to America as a national past time (no sane nation does this, or if you want to argue they do then don't get mad when Americans are burning the Koran or whatever) and funding militants. You're trying to argue from a place that assumes your values about economics and prosperity and global human rights with an entity that does not care about those values. If they were rational as you'd like them to be they'd just not do any of the things they've been doing. Why does Iran have to get special treatment to not build a nuclear weapon? Have you thought about that? Why do we have to pay them off? Why are they special snowflakes who get to hold the world hostage less they build nuclear bombs to threaten others? > Cats out of the bag, one more nuclear rogue state. That's the fault of the rest of the world then for failing to come together to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons.
mmooss 21d ago
Per the OP, the Houthis say only Saudi ships are blocked, everyone else is safe.
rurp 21d ago
Yeah Chinese oil reserves were much larger than was publicly known. They immediately cut imports by a massive amount as soon as the war started and have been able to keep it up for months. Without that the economic fallout would have been far greater. Not that they are doing it for this reason, but they have done a lot to shield trump from the consequences of his stupid war. But those supplies can only hold for so long; things can get much worse for the world economy in the near future.
- klaff 21d ago
  China is also reducing gasoline and diesel use by adoption of EVs.
  - IAmBroom 21d ago
    A slow, ongoing reaction is not going to fix a sudden, large action.
    - consumer451 21d ago
      20+ years of preparation does a pretty good job though. I often wonder about the world we would live in if the Brooks Brothers Riot had not succeeded. That appears to have been the turning point for the fall of the USA, and even more sadly, humanity.
- 0cf8612b2e1e 21d ago
  China took 5.5 million barrels per day of demand off of the table overnight. A quarter of what went through the strait. They single-handedly stopped catastrophe by months. Even with that, global strategic petroleum reserves are quickly draining. Last I looked, the US was down to ~290M. There is a legal limit of 250M (though laws don’t matter anymore). The structural floor is also estimated to be somewhere north of 200M. The world is about to not be able to meet all oil demand for any price.
Havoc 21d ago
Don't think that's 100%. They do have a ton of stockpiles and timed additional buys very well, but their reduction in oil imports (9%?) appears to be actual usage drops rather than running down stockpiles. They're at much higher levels now than when this kicked off. Which if correct is a crazy display of flexibility in the economy [9%] https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-chinas-co2-emissions-fall-in-q2-2026-due-to-plummeting-oil-use https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-chinas-co2-emissions-fa...

My understanding is we haven’t gotten to full Hormuz apocalypse mode because the Chinese have a ton of stockpiles. And the Red Sea has been an option. Those conditions seem to be changing.

AnotherGoodName 21d ago

The Houthis also explicitly allow Chinese vessels and Chinese ships have been able to traverse the red sea without issue. Which means China actually has more ability to access oil than other countries right now. I suspect the Chinese won’t be happy with the pipeline and refinery attacks on Saudi Arabia but i also assume that there will still be plenty of Chinese bound oil for the foreseeable future.

0xbadcafebee 21d ago
China has a backdoor for oil from Russia and Iran (https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/the-axis-of-evasion-behind-chinas-oil-trade-with-iran-and-russia/ https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/the-ax...) which is part of what feeds their massive reserves. Russia and Iran have an interest in continuing this trade since they're sanctioned by the US and most crude is priced in USD. It's not a major source of their oil due to threats of sanctions from the US, but in a pinch they can ramp it up if needed.

bijowo1676 21d ago

the reason China was using stockpiles is they want to time the gasoline price shock right to the midterm elections. The moment they stop using stockpiles and start purchasing the prices will jump

DrScientist 21d ago
Blaming the current situation on the actions of China is beyond bizarre.
- bluGill 21d ago
  China has some influence. They did do what was said - but only if you take the absolute most charitable reading (which is a expected here).
  - DrScientist 21d ago
    Eh? They didn't/aren't using their stockpiles to anywhere near the extent the US has! There reserves are much bigger - they have about a years supply - yet they used less in absolute terms than the US! What they did was aggressively reduce demand by accelerating the switch to EV's and firing up a few more coal powerstations. In terms of influencing the midterms - I suspect China isn't anywhere near the front of the queue in hoping Trump get's a beating given the chaos he is causing. Complaining about foreign interference is ironically straight from the Hillary playbook.
    - bluGill 21d ago
      They are strategically using their stockpiles. There are a lot of factors in their strategy and some of them conflict. This has an effect on the world market. How much of their strategy is to change elections vs other concerns I don't know.
      - DrScientist 18d ago
        Frankly if I was China, I'd be conflicted about the mid-terms - Trump is currently leading the US to disastrous wars - kinetic and trade, pissing off his closest allies, under-mining the dollar, and making China look a sane and stable partner. On the other hand the world might be better off if he was more constrained post mid-terms. Frankly, in terms of countries wanting Trump to take a beating in the mid-terms, I'd put countries like Canada and most of Europe way ahead of China there. And in terms of China's energy strategy - China is the worlds biggest net importer of crude therefore China's strategy is going to be focussed on managing that first and foremost. I think it's the US who hoped that the oil crisis would impact China much more - this is the US making, not China.
softwaredoug 21d ago
Well roughly now would be when you’d time a huge shock OTOH midterm generic ballots are much more stable than top line presidential horse race polling. So it might only matter at the margins.
deleted 21d ago
[deleted]
lowbloodsugar 21d ago
lol. The orange man is doing more damage to the USA than China could ever do short of actual war. He is destroying the US militarily, economically and politically. They emphatically support his efforts.
- kadoban 21d ago
  At some point they might prefer stability and sanity. I would bet that at this point they don't care much either way. China is playing long, most of the ~unchanging things are in their favor and the US already proved that they're unreliable. People won't forget that soon even if Trump is gone.
  - LarsKrimi 21d ago
    Stability and sanity is not happening whether the conflicts stop in Yemen+Hormuz or not. At that point it's just going to go back to tarriff wars and new terror campaigns that the US admin will start somewhere else
    - kadoban 21d ago
      The context of this is which party China would prefer to win the midterms. The dems winning would distract Trump from being able to fuck up the rest of the world a bit. My bet would be that China doesn't care much either way, they win regardless.
      - LarsKrimi 21d ago
        We agree that China won't care long term. They cannot lose in the current setup In my view the worst that can happen for China is that Trump gets limited by anything. He's hurting US relations more than he's hurting China short or long-term. Relations take longer to build than trade "Don't interrupt your opponent when they're making a mistake"
        kadoban 21d ago
Frieren 21d ago
> time the gasoline price shock right to the midterm elections. Donald Trump can end this at any time if he wants. It would have been better to not have started it, thou. Less killing of innocent people, less spending on weapons, better mental health for USA soldiers... And why is China suddenly at fault for America's actions?
- LtWorf 21d ago
  He can't. Bibi is in charge.
  - sentientlaserbe 21d ago
    Partially true. Seems most likely that Trump didn't like the Iranian provisions for reparations to end the war. A hard stance they've taken, one Trump would never go for (because of how incompetent it would make him look), and here we are.
- toast0 21d ago
  > Donald Trump can end this at any time if he wants. I'm not really sure that's true. The US is no longer a credible negotiator. I'm not sure negotiating a peace would necessarily end the situation immediately.
  - oblio 20d ago
    > The US is no longer a credible negotiator. The US isn't even negotiating. Fairly sure they don't have a full negotiating team and they're doing it via 1-2 Trump flunkeys and Pakistan intermediating.
cmrdporcupine 21d ago
It's so amazing to watch people (presumably Americans) over and over make everything about American domestic politics. That the only way to explain Trump's behaviour is on the domestic terms that Americans know and are comfortable with. I see this over and over again with the Canada stuff. Or Greenland stuff. Not taking it seriously because "oh that's just Trump deflecting cuz of [Epstein|Midterms|etc]." Meanwhile the actual blast radius here is far far far outside of the domestic arena. When will people just take this guy at his word? He says he wants to conquer or do X Y and Z. That's it. He said those things. Believe him. Stop trying to make it about yourself. (And also he wants to make personal money off manipulating the stock market and oil prices.) It's not a good look, esp to the victims of Trump outside the US who have no power to vote in American elections and yet are victims of American power.
- toast0 21d ago
  > He said those things. Believe him. He says a lot of things he doesn't do though. Beleiving him is a bad heuristic and so is disbeleiving him.

ericmay 21d ago

[flagged]

pphysch 21d ago
Why can Israel have a nuclear weapon? It is also an insanely violent ethno-theocratic regime.
- ericmay 21d ago
  Besides the point and whataboutism, but I'm not advocating that Israel should have nuclear weapons. They do, and I'm not sure there's much we can do about it at this point. Same with North Korea. I'm opposed to the proliferation of nuclear weapons and just because one country has one doesn't mean other countries should go and get them too.
  - nemomarx 21d ago
    Maybe we should have brokered some kinda deal with Iran to prevent them getting a nuclear weapon then, huh. At this point they'd be fools to not pursue getting one, and we killed everyone in a position of authority who was rational about it. Cats out of the bag, one more nuclear rogue state.
    - ericmay 21d ago
      > Maybe we should have brokered some kinda deal with Iran to prevent them getting a nuclear weapon then, huh. Maybe we should have brokered some kind of deal with Russia to prevent them from invading Ukraine. Do you trust American intelligence 100% to verify Iran is not building a nuclear bomb? And if they weren't, why also were they funding these militant groups? What's the point? It's Neo-colonialism in the Middle East. > At this point they'd be fools to not pursue getting one, and we killed everyone in a position of authority who was rational about it. The leadership wasn't really rational in your western sense. I'm not sure where you are coming up with that. If they were rational they wouldn't be murdering their own civilians, chanting death to Israel and death to America as a national past time (no sane nation does this, or if you want to argue they do then don't get mad when Americans are burning the Koran or whatever) and funding militants. You're trying to argue from a place that assumes your values about economics and prosperity and global human rights with an entity that does not care about those values. If they were rational as you'd like them to be they'd just not do any of the things they've been doing. Why does Iran have to get special treatment to not build a nuclear weapon? Have you thought about that? Why do we have to pay them off? Why are they special snowflakes who get to hold the world hostage less they build nuclear bombs to threaten others? > Cats out of the bag, one more nuclear rogue state. That's the fault of the rest of the world then for failing to come together to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

mmooss 21d ago

Per the OP, the Houthis say only Saudi ships are blocked, everyone else is safe.

rurp 21d ago

Yeah Chinese oil reserves were much larger than was publicly known. They immediately cut imports by a massive amount as soon as the war started and have been able to keep it up for months. Without that the economic fallout would have been far greater. Not that they are doing it for this reason, but they have done a lot to shield trump from the consequences of his stupid war. But those supplies can only hold for so long; things can get much worse for the world economy in the near future.

klaff 21d ago
China is also reducing gasoline and diesel use by adoption of EVs.
- IAmBroom 21d ago
  A slow, ongoing reaction is not going to fix a sudden, large action.
  - consumer451 21d ago
    20+ years of preparation does a pretty good job though. I often wonder about the world we would live in if the Brooks Brothers Riot had not succeeded. That appears to have been the turning point for the fall of the USA, and even more sadly, humanity.
0cf8612b2e1e 21d ago
China took 5.5 million barrels per day of demand off of the table overnight. A quarter of what went through the strait. They single-handedly stopped catastrophe by months. Even with that, global strategic petroleum reserves are quickly draining. Last I looked, the US was down to ~290M. There is a legal limit of 250M (though laws don’t matter anymore). The structural floor is also estimated to be somewhere north of 200M. The world is about to not be able to meet all oil demand for any price.

Havoc 21d ago

Don't think that's 100%. They do have a ton of stockpiles and timed additional buys very well, but their reduction in oil imports (9%?) appears to be actual usage drops rather than running down stockpiles. They're at much higher levels now than when this kicked off. Which if correct is a crazy display of flexibility in the economy [9%] https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-chinas-co2-emissions-fall-in-q2-2026-due-to-plummeting-oil-use https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-chinas-co2-emissions-fa...