Energy

China Puts Kibosh On Fuel Exports A Week After Trump Asked Xi To Send More

Official White House Photo by Daniel Torok

China has suspended fuel exports a week after President Donald Trump pressed the Communist nation’s leader to help stabilize global supply.

The country’s refiners have suspended fuel exports for October, four people briefed on the matter told Reuters on Thursday.

On Wednesday, state-owned PetroChina canceled a handful of gasoline and jet fuel shipments planned for October, most of which it had agreed to within the past two weeks, three of the sources said.

During Chinese President Xi Jinping’s state visit, Trump urged him to “increase production of refined petroleum products to stabilize global supply,” according to a Sept. 25 White House fact sheet.

The country has restricted fuel exports before and then rolled back the controls when doing so served its interests, Max Meizlish, a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Center on Economic and Financial Power, said in a statement to the Daily Caller News Foundation.

“China may temporarily restrict fuel, as it did earlier in the war, but then it will relieve those controls to save itself,” Meizlish said.

The world will then see the country “as a savior despite the fact that it’s actually China saving itself,” he added.

Diesel averaged $6.39 a gallon nationwide Thursday, up from $3.71 a year earlier, according to the American Automobile Association (AAA).

The Chinese Embassy did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.

The suspension could drive fuel prices in some countries to new highs as global markets grapple with supplies lost to the Iran war and Ukraine’s attacks on Russian refineries, Reuters reported.

Energy Secretary Chris Wright said in the Oval Office on Wednesday that “we’ve lost diesel exports from China,” adding that some Middle Eastern supplies were being restored.

Trump said during the same appearance that he discusses a diesel export ban daily and that a ban could lower diesel costs while having a negative effect on gasoline prices, the outlet reported.

The country began a weeklong holiday Thursday without clearing its major refiners to export fuel anywhere other than Hong Kong and Macau in October, the sources said.

It is unclear whether shipments will resume after the holiday ends on Oct. 7, and the decision could depend on domestic fuel inventories and refinery output, the sources added.

Zhejiang Petrochemical Corp., a privately controlled refiner, did not schedule any fuel shipments during the holiday week, the fourth source said.

Refiners in China loaded about 1.4 million metric tons of diesel and at least two million metric tons of jet fuel for export in September, including shipments to Hong Kong and Macau, according to trade estimates cited by Reuters.

The Chinese government has made exports contingent on domestic fuel stocks returning to prewar levels, the news agency reported.

Commercial diesel inventories are about 20 million barrels below that level, Zameer Yusof, a senior manager at the commodity data firm Kpler, told Reuters.

“International markets are an afterthought,” Michal Meidan, head of China energy research at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, told the outlet.

Meizlish, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies fellow, said the country’s “incredibly export-dependent economy would collapse” if its neighbors and trade partners fell into recession.

The Energy Information Administration (EIA) forecast in September that U.S. inventories of distillate fuel, which is often sold as diesel, would stay below their lowest level of the previous five years through the end of 2026 and most of 2027.

Those inventories fell below the five-year range in April, when U.S. net exports of the fuel ran high after large amounts of supply from the Middle East, Russia and China dropped off the market, the agency noted.

Low inventories may also push up heating oil prices for homes in the Northeast, the agency added.

Removing any diesel from the market will further tighten supplies and push prices higher, Mark Wolfe, executive director of the National Energy Assistance Directors Association (NEADA), said in a statement to the DCNF.

“Because of the significant rise in heating oil prices I expect more families will need help and those families that received help last year will need additional assistance,” Wolfe added.

The EIA projects retail diesel will average $5.07 a gallon this year, up from $3.66 in 2025.

China restricted fuel exports in March after the Iran war disrupted Middle Eastern crude supplies, then relaxed the curbs in July and has managed diesel, gasoline and jet fuel shipments month by month since, according to Reuters.

The country’s oil product exports rose 12.7 percent from a year earlier to 6.01 million metric tons in August, the most since March 2024, according to customs data cited by S&P Global.

The administration is separately pressing France and Germany to release emergency diesel reserves, warning it could otherwise bar U.S. exports of the fuel, Reuters reported Thursday.