Why China Is Driving Short-Term Oil Prices But OPEC Still Holds the Lever

For most of the past decade, oil markets have treated decisions by OPEC as the primary signal for price direction. That hierarchy is being tested, but not overturned. What has changed is where traders look for short-term cues. Increasingly, those cues are coming from China, not because Beijing controls supply, but because its buying behavior now dominates marginal demand and near-term price discovery. As reported by Reuters, China has overtaken OPEC as the most influential force in oil price formation, driven by the scale and timing of its crude…