Asia's crude oil imports return to pre-war levels in October, but refined fuel supplies still lag, Kpler data shows
Asia imported 26.39 million barrels per day of crude oil in October, close to its pre-war average, but refined fuel imports remained 10 per cent below pre-war levels, according to Kpler data reported by Reuters. Figures checked on Monday morning, 2 November 2026 (Pakistan time).
Asia's imports of crude oil recovered in October to levels last seen before the war over Iran began, according to new data compiled by commodity analysts Kpler and reported by Reuters on Monday, in a sign that the region's crude supply has largely healed even as the market for refined fuels remains under strain. Figures checked on Monday morning, 2 November 2026 (Pakistan time).
The headline figure is striking. Asia, the world's largest oil-importing region, took in 26.39 million barrels per day of crude in October, up from 24.24 million barrels per day in September. That is only just below the average of 27.0 million barrels per day recorded in the three months before the United States and Israel attacked Iran on 28 February, and it is 39 per cent above the post-conflict low of 18.93 million barrels per day reached in April, when the disruption to Gulf shipments was at its worst.
The recovery has been driven above all by exporters in the Middle East, which have stepped up shipments through the contested Strait of Hormuz despite the risk of missile and drone attacks by Iran, drawn by the high prices on offer for cargoes that make it through. Asia's crude imports via the strait rose to 7.42 million barrels per day in October. That is still well below the pre-war three-month average of 13.06 million barrels per day, but it is more than four and a half times the April low of 1.59 million barrels per day, when the waterway was effectively at its most dangerous.
The pattern fits what Kpler itself had already been reporting in the middle of October, when its media briefing noted that Asia had imported about 26 million barrels per day of crude in the first two weeks of the month, within 1 per cent of its pre-war average of 26.2 million barrels per day. The full-month figures published on Monday confirm that the early-October pace was sustained through the rest of the month, rather than fading as the fighting around the Gulf continued.
Supplies from outside the Middle East have also played a part. Asia's imports from Russia rose to 3.50 million barrels per day in October, up from 3.15 million barrels per day in the three months before the war, while arrivals from the Americas held steady at 4.16 million barrels per day, the same as the pre-war average. Kpler's data point to a much larger increase in November, with 6.29 million barrels per day expected from the Americas, suggesting buyers have been booking cargoes from further afield to insure against any fresh interruption in the Gulf.
Yet the crude recovery tells only half the story, and Reuters' analysis is careful to draw the distinction. The real stress in energy markets, it says, is now in refined products such as diesel and petrol, where imports have lagged well behind crude. Asia imported 6.15 million barrels per day of light and middle distillates in October, up from 5.88 million in September but still 10 per cent below the pre-war average of 6.85 million barrels per day.
The shortfall is sharpest in supplies from the Middle East itself. Imports of light and middle distillates from the region came in at 1.69 million barrels per day, down 18.4 per cent from the pre-war average of 2.07 million barrels per day, reflecting the loss of refined output from refineries in the Middle East that have been damaged or disrupted during the conflict. Total Asian distillate imports have nevertheless climbed 16.7 per cent from their post-conflict low of 5.27 million barrels per day in June, largely because the region has sourced more diesel and petrol from suppliers outside the Middle East, including the Americas and Africa.
That tightness is visible in prices. The price of gasoil, the building block for diesel, in Singapore ended at 168.62 dollars a barrel on 30 October, down from a record 199.89 dollars hit on 30 March but still 84 per cent higher than the 91.42 dollars that prevailed on 27 February, the day before the war began. For households and businesses across Asia, that gap between crude and refined-fuel prices helps explain why fuel costs have stayed high even as crude shipments have recovered.
The stakes are high because Asia is the region most dependent on crude and refined fuels from the Middle East, buying about 80 per cent of the pre-war volumes from the region. When the strait that carries a large share of that oil was threatened, the shock travelled quickly through shipping costs, refinery margins and pump prices across the continent, and the slow return of refined supplies shows how long such shocks can linger after the headline crude figures improve.
What happens next will depend on several moving parts. Negotiations aimed at reopening the Strait of Hormuz fully are continuing, with Iranian and Qatari officials reported to have held a third straight day of talks, while Gulf producers weigh the rewards of higher prices against the risk of sending tankers through contested waters. Traders will also watch whether the expected surge in November arrivals from the Americas materialises, and whether refineries in the Middle East and Russia can restore enough output to ease the diesel squeeze. For now, the October data mark a milestone: the crude has come back, but the fuel made from it has not yet fully followed.
This post is market news information only, not financial advice.
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