{"id":76866,"date":"2026-03-30T09:00:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-30T00:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2026\/mar\/30\/china-teapot-refineries-crude-oil-iran-war"},"modified":"2026-03-30T09:00:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T00:00:09","slug":"chinas-teapot-oil-refineries-keep-economy-brewing-but-surging-crude-prices-leave-them-strained","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=76866","title":{"rendered":"China\u2019s \u2018teapot\u2019 oil refineries keep economy brewing \u2013 but surging crude prices leave them strained"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The factories, which buy cheap crude and turn it into fuel, are struggling as higher oil prices threaten their razor-sharp margins <\/p>\n<p>The towns that are the bulwark of China\u2019s energy security can, at a moment of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2026\/mar\/23\/iran-war-energy-crisis-1970s-oil-shocks-fatih-birol-iea\">global crisis<\/a>, appear deceptively quiet. Trucks carrying oil trundle along wide-open highways that have little traffic, while a few boarded-up shops in crumbling low-rise buildings hint at a long-forgotten local buzz.<\/p>\n<p>A ramshackle noodle shop serving hand-pulled ribbons of dough was empty at lunchtime, save for a few construction workers and a teacher watching videos on Douyin, the social media platform, with his meal.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2026\/mar\/30\/china-teapot-refineries-crude-oil-iran-war\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The factories, which buy cheap crude and turn it into fuel, are struggling as higher oil prices threaten their razor-sharp margins The towns that are the bulwark of China\u2019s energy security can, at a moment of global crisis, appear deceptively quiet. Tr&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5237,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[41,50,448,212,449,3510,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76866","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-china","category-iran","category-middle-east-and-north-africa","category-oil","category-us-israel-war-on-iran","category-world-news"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76866","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5237"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=76866"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76866\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76867,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76866\/revisions\/76867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=76866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=76866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=76866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}