How Will China’s New Economic Stimulus Measures Affect Oil Prices?

China has been the world’s largest net importer of total petroleum and other liquid fuels since 2013, and from 2017 it also became its largest annual gross crude oil importer, having overtaken the U.S. in that regard. These landmarks were driven by its rapidly growing need for energy to power its booming economic development from the mid-1990s, which in turn catalysed the supercycle through that period characterized by ever-increasing prices for the commodities it most demanded. When Covid hit at the end of 2019, China responded with a ‘Zero-Covid’...