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China's Oil Imports Rise 8.9% in Q1, Gas Imports Down 4%; Russian Supplies Surge
China's crude oil imports grew by 9% in the first quarter of 2026, while gas imports declined by 4%, according to customs data. Russian oil supplies to China surged by more than 30% during the period, reinforcing Moscow's position as a leading energy partner.
By Tertius News AI Desk1 distinct · 1 masthead · 3 articlesVersion 1Coverage Published
Lead
China's oil imports rose by 9% in the January-March period of 2026 compared with the same period last year, while gas supplies fell by 4%, according to figures released by the General Administration of Customs of China and reported by TASS. The data showed that China purchased 83 million tons of oil and 14 million tons of gas in the reporting period. In value terms, oil imports decreased by 7% year-on-year, to 55 billion, and gas imports fell by 4%, to 63 billion.
Coverage Comparison
All three articles cited in this report come from TASS, the Russian state news agency, and rely on data from China's General Administration of Customs. The first article provides a straightforward statistical overview of China's total oil and gas imports. The second article, quoting Russian Ambassador to China Igor Morgulov in an interview with Izvestia, offers a more interpretive framing, highlighting the resilience of the Russian-Chinese energy partnership amid what the ambassador described as external shocks, including the Middle East conflict. The third article, based on TASS calculations from customs figures, focuses specifically on Russian oil and gas supplies to China during the first quarter.
While the numerical data are consistent across the articles, the second piece contains language that reflects a distinctly Russian official viewpoint, referring to "unprovoked US and Israeli aggression against Iran" and emphasizing Russia's reliability as an energy supplier. The other two articles maintain a more neutral, data-driven tone.
Key Claims
China's overall oil imports rose 9% year-on-year in Q1 2026, while gas imports declined 4%, according to data from the General Administration of Customs of China as reported by TASS.
Russian crude oil supplies to China grew by 31% in Q1 2026 to 86 million tons, according to TASS calculations based on customs data. In value terms, Russian oil imports increased by 8% year-on-year to 37 billion.
Russian LNG imports to China rose 7% in physical terms to 38 million tons, though the value declined by 3% year-on-year to 6 million, reflecting pricing trends.
Russian pipeline gas supplies to China totaled 3 billion in Q1 2026, down 9% year-on-year, per customs data. The Chinese customs agency does not disclose physical volumes of pipeline gas imports.
Energy supplies from Russia to China amounted to almost $80 billion by the end of 2025, according to Ambassador Morgulov, representing about one-third of total bilateral trade.
In 2025, China purchased 72 million tons of oil from Russia, a 1% decrease year-on-year, and 79 million tons of LNG, up 2%. Deliveries via the Power of Siberia pipeline reached about 8 billion cubic meters, up 25%.
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Each row is one claim, attributed to the outlet whose wording states it most clearly. Confidence rates how directly the source text states the claim — explicit and unhedged rates high; hedged, pieced-together, or internally inconsistent statements rate lower. It does not measure whether the claim is true. Status is Contested when two claims on this page negate each other; otherwise it counts the distinct outlets we found asserting it — so a single-source claim can still show high confidence, and a multi-source claim can show medium. Every one of those outlets is named beside the status, so you can check the count against the list. For claims extracted before we began storing that list, the row says so: it names the outlet the claim is quoted from and states that we have not recorded which outlets backed it. Outlets wrote at different times, so a figure that evolves — a casualty count, for example — can legitimately differ between rows; check the "as of" time next to each claim's source.
Claim
Confidence
Status
ClaimChina's oil imports rose by 8.9% in January-March 2026 year-on-year.