China's Crude Imports Fell 20% and Its Refiners Cut to Multiyear Lows — So Coal Power Filled the Gap

China's Crude Imports Fell 20% and Its Refiners Cut to Multiyear Lows — So Coal Power Filled the Gap The Hormuz squeeze is reshaping the world's largest energy consumer in real time: less imported oil and gas, more coal-fired power, and a clean-energy build that keeps running underneath. The Strait of Hormuz disruption is hitting China's energy system in measurable ways. In April, crude oil and natural gas imports fell by around 20% and 13% year-on-year respectively, as shipping disruptions weighed heavily on the country's energy imports.¹ The near-halt to shipments through the strait choked a vital channel for crude, forcing Chinese oil processors to sharply reduce output, with runs in the state-owned sector dropping to multiyear lows.⁶ When the world's largest crude importer cannot get the barrels it needs, it cuts the refineries that turn them into fuel. It matters because of what fills the gap, and the answer is coal. Coal power generation continued to rebound after its 2025 decline, pushed up for a fourth consecutive month by weak wind, subdued solar performance and extended nuclear refuelling outages.¹ Total power generation rose an estimated 6.6% year-on-year, and thermal power commissioning in the first quarter surged by more than 160% year-on-year to a record high.¹ A country losing imported oil and gas to a chokepoint disruption is leaning on the one fuel it produces at home in vast quantities. This exposes the structural tension at the heart of China's energy transition: continued coal expansion alongside clean-energy growth during a fossil-fuel crunch.¹ The clean build has not stopped, but it is uneven. Solar power capacity additions fell 31% year-on-year, dragged down by a high base a year earlier, though they remained above 2023 levels, while wind power additions rose 8%.¹ The renewables are still being built, just not fast enough or reliably enough to cover the gap that the import squeeze and weak weather opened. The parts of the clean economy tied to manufacturing and exports are still booming, which complicates the picture. Battery output remained strong in April, rising 55.6% year-on-year on energy-storage demand and exports, and new energy vehicles continued to outperform the broader auto sector.¹ So China is simultaneously burning more coal for power and scaling the batteries and EVs that will eventually reduce its fuel demand. The transition and the coal rebound are happening in the same economy at the same time. The coal market itself is being reshaped by policy as well as the crunch. China's main coal industry body cut its forecast for the country's imports to 465 million tonnes in 2026, down from a projection of 480 million tonnes about three weeks earlier, after Indonesia moved to restrict shipments to boost prices.² Lower imports and potentially higher domestic production mean China is increasingly meeting its coal needs from its own mines, insulating its power system from the seaborne market even as it burns more. The global oil industry is reading the same crisis as a turning point. The IEA's Fatih Birol says the oil crisis triggered by the Iran war has changed the fossil-fuel industry forever, turning countries toward securing their own energy supplies.³ Yet the majors are not retreating: Shell's boss Wael Sawan says the company hopes to compete with the Gulf to the point of discomfort, and upstream investment had already risen to $500 billion in 2022, halfway back toward its 2014 peak of $700 billion.⁵ The crisis is pushing producers to spend, not pull back. The emissions stakes are large, which is what makes China's coal rebound consequential beyond its borders. Carbon-dioxide emissions from oil alone reached an estimated 12.1 billion tonnes a year, about 32% of all industrial emissions, and China's return to coal during the crunch adds to that total.⁴ A fossil-fuel crunch that pushes the world's biggest emitter back toward coal is a setback for global emissions even if the clean build continues underneath. The signal to watch is whether China's coal power keeps rising once the Hormuz disruption eases and crude and gas imports recover.¹ If coal generation normalises as imports return, the rebound was a crisis response. If coal power stays elevated and thermal commissioning keeps surging, the crunch will have entrenched a structural shift back toward coal in the country that most determines the global emissions path. The refiners are cut, the coal plants are running, and the clean build is racing alongside both.^1,6