China's oil demand has been negatively impacted by its zero COVID policy. For readers that are familiar with our analysis on this matter, we are estimating ~1.5 to ~2 million b/d of demand reduction because of this policy. According to the IEA, the year-over-year difference is ~613k b/d.
Source: IEA
And you can see the demand variable breakdown here:
Source: IEA
Despite China's oil demand meaningfully dropping in 2022, something interesting has occurred lately. Relative to China's level of seaborne crude imports, China's onshore crude oil inventories are falling.
