GreenergyDaily

Dec. 3, 2025

Chinese oil demand is likely to remain subdued until at least the middle of next year, according to Janet Kong, chief executive officer of Hengli Petrochemical International Pte.

"It's difficult to find a very bright spot unless the government rolls out new policy at beginning of next year," she said on the sidelines of the Financial Times Commodities Asia Summit in Singapore.

Government policy remains the wild card for China's outlook, said Kong, who heads one of the country's biggest private refiners. The market is watching the so-called Two Sessions, the annual meetings of the China National People's Congress and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, to see if there will be more stimulus, she said.

Any move by authorities to raise fuel export quotas for refineries, could boost demand, Kong said. And China's purchases for its strategic petroleum reserves might lift imports, but with inventories already high it's unclear how much further buying Beijing will do, she said.

"The urgency isn't there, but the capacity, the ability is there," Kong said. "So it means any SPR build will be a lot more policy induced."