by Grace Johnston

7 September 2026

Global diesel markets are tight again, and the instinct is to ask whether China will ride to the rescue as it did in late 2022. Probably not to the same degree — the mechanics this time are different enough that the 2022 playbook only partly applies.

What China did in 2022

Through most of 2022, Beijing kept export quotas unusually low, and diesel exports were down roughly 72% year-on-year through September. Then, on September 30, 2022, China issued a fifth batch of quotas totalling 15 million tonnes (13.25 million tonnes of gasoline, diesel and jet fuel, plus 1.75 million tonnes of marine fuel). Refiners responded fast: diesel exports more than doubled that month and hit multi-year highs into December, just as the EU’s looming February 2023 ban on Russian products meant Europe needed roughly 2 million extra tonnes of diesel a month. It was less a coordinated rescue than Chinese refiners chasing strong margins once Beijing loosened the leash — but the timing mattered enormously for how smoothly that winter passed.

Why 2026 starts from a different place

This year’s shortage has different roots. Drone strikes have damaged Middle East refining capacity and disrupted tankers through the Strait of Hormuz; Russian refineries have been knocked offline by Ukrainian strikes, removing one of the world’s largest diesel exporters almost entirely; and US refiners are already at record utilisation (about 97% in July) with no spare capacity to fill the gap. Together, the world is processing roughly 5 million fewer barrels of crude a day than a year ago — nearly 10% of global refining supply — and US diesel prices touched $5.58/gallon, near record highs.

China’s own posture has been reactive rather than opportunistic. In early March 2026, Beijing ordered refiners to halt new export contracts and unwind existing ones, citing the same Hormuz disruption and a wish to protect domestic supply. That squeezed Asian markets further, since China normally ranks among the region’s top three fuel exporters, alongside South Korea and Singapore.

Only as domestic stockpiles rebuilt — helped by China’s own crude reserves, reportedly above a billion barrels — did Beijing start easing the curbs: partial relaxation in April, a cap of just 800,000 tonnes for July initially, then roughly 2.7 million tonnes for August with unused volume rolling into September, and private refiners like Rongsheng brought back into the export pool alongside Sinopec and CNPC. Fuel-oil exports were already up 18% year-on-year by June.

So, will Q4 look like 2022?

There’s a real parallel: both episodes involve China withholding exports early in the year, then loosening quotas as stockpiles allow. The difference is starting position and pace. In 2022, China had ample spare capacity and simply needed permission to sell, so the ramp was fast and dramatic. In 2026, China is unwinding an active export ban imposed mid-crisis, and the volumes released so far — a few million tonnes a month — are modest next to the roughly 5 million b/d global shortfall driven by Middle East and Russian outages, which China’s exports can’t fix directly.

If Beijing keeps easing quotas through Q4 — plausible, given rebuilding stockpiles and the same profit incentive refiners had in 2022 — China can meaningfully soften the Asian diesel market and take some pressure off global barrels. But it’s unlikely to be the single decisive swing factor 2022 saw, since this shortage’s core driver — lost Middle Eastern and Russian refining capacity — sits outside China’s control.