A 2027 U.S.–China conflict with Australia aligned to the U.S. China trade stops immediately, Taiwan exports are slowed/limited, and China launches large‑scale cyber disruption in waves. Planning scenario, not a forecast. No end date is set.
A China stop hits the natural-gas-liquids export book, not the gasoline pump. In 2025, U.S. exports to China were 295 thousand barrels per day of ethane and 232 thousand barrels per day of propane, inside 545 thousand barrels per day of hydrocarbon gas liquids. Crude oil to China was 23 thousand barrels per day. Finished motor gasoline to China was 0.
A little more than 50 percent of U.S. ethane exports went to China in 2025. The United States exported 579,000 barrels per day of ethane to nine countries. The second destination was Canada by pipeline and the third was India by tanker.
Crude export barrels keep loading for other buyers. Total crude exports were 1,445,867 thousand barrels in 2025. China was 8,321 thousand barrels. Calculated from that table, Netherlands was 21.8 percent, South Korea was 12.7 percent, Canada was 9.5 percent, Taiwan was 5.5 percent, Japan was 2.5 percent, and China was 0.6 percent. The barrel inputs are Netherlands 314,661, South Korea 184,249, Canada 138,018, Taiwan 79,262, Japan 36,620, and China 8,321.
LNG to China had already collapsed before this scenario. The annual series prints 212,837 million cubic feet in 2024 and 546 million cubic feet in 2025. First-half 2026 U.S. LNG exports averaged 17.4 billion cubic feet per day, led by Egypt, the Netherlands, Italy, France, and the United Kingdom.
The domestic fuel system is the week-1 operating exposure. Operable atmospheric distillation was 18.2 million barrels per calendar day on 1 January 2026 across 130 operable refineries. Finished motor gasoline product supplied was 8,935 thousand barrels per day in 2025. Convenience stores selling fuel stood at 121,852 stores and sell an estimated 80 percent of fuel purchased in the United States.
The short price analog is one week, not a year-over-year peak. The week ending 28 February 2022 printed 3.608 dollars a gallon and the week ending 7 March 2022 printed 4.102 dollars a gallon. From those two prints, regular gasoline rose 13.7 percent. The week ending 21 February 2022 printed 3.530 dollars a gallon and the week ending 13 June 2022 printed 5.006 dollars a gallon. The accumulated analog is 41.8 percent.
On 7 May 2021 Colonial Pipeline proactively shut its system after a ransomware attack, and on 13 May 2021 it restarted the entire system with product delivery to all markets. The calculated shutdown gap is 6 days.
China trade stopping removes the 2025 China book of 295 thousand barrels per day of ethane, 232 thousand barrels per day of propane, and 17 thousand barrels per day of normal butane, plus 23 thousand barrels per day of crude. It removes 0 finished motor gasoline. Domestic product supplied of finished motor gasoline, 8,935 thousand barrels per day in 2025, does not depend on a Chinese buyer.
Crude cargoes that can still load are the non-China rows on the same destination table. Netherlands was 314,661 thousand barrels, South Korea 184,249, Canada 138,018, Taiwan 79,262, Japan 36,620, and Singapore 24,943, against a total of 1,445,867 thousand barrels. Calculated shares are Netherlands 21.8 percent, South Korea 12.7 percent, Canada 9.5 percent, Taiwan 5.5 percent, Japan 2.5 percent, and Singapore 1.7 percent.
Propane already showed a partial reroute in 2025. China, still the largest importer, reduced U.S. propane receipts by 29 percent. South Korea decreased 20 percent and Japan was unchanged. India rose from 2,000 barrels per day in 2024 to 41,000 barrels per day in 2025. Vietnam, Singapore, and Indonesia together increased by 70,000 barrels per day. Those are observed 2025 shifts. A 2027 embargo absorbing the remaining China volume is an inference.
Ethane is harder to reroute than propane because one buyer takes the majority. A little more than 50 percent went to China. A calculated cross-check of the China rate of 295 thousand barrels per day divided by total ethane exports of 579,000 barrels per day is 51 percent to the nearest percent, which matches that printed phrase. Canada by pipeline and India by tanker are the next sinks. INEOS Project One in Antwerp is slated for the third quarter of 2026 at about 80,000 barrels per day. No page opened here prices the China ethane slice in dollars.
The domestic break in week 1 is a control-system or pipeline outage, on the Colonial record. The system was shut on 7 May 2021 and restarted on 13 May 2021. The calculated shutdown gap is 6 days. More than 80 percent of U.S. energy infrastructure is privately owned, and the energy sector is electricity, oil, and natural gas.
Taiwan in this industry is a crude customer and a tubular-goods supplier, and those are different facts. Taiwan bought 79,262 thousand barrels of U.S. crude in 2025, a calculated 5.5 percent of 1,445,867. Sales to Taiwan are not an import dependency. The preliminary Commerce determination prints Taiwan OCTG imports of 239,959,689 kilograms in 2025, valued at 188,738,506 dollars. The share of all U.S. OCTG imports is unpublished on that page. The initiation still prints dumping margins of 73.68 to 75.31 percent and no tons.
Short-horizon price analog: regular gasoline rose 13.7 percent from the week ending 28 February 2022 at 3.608 dollars a gallon to the week ending 7 March 2022 at 4.102 dollars a gallon. The 13.7 percent figure is calculated from those two weekly prints. It is not a year-over-year peak.
Short-horizon outage analog: Colonial was shut on 7 May 2021 and fully restarted on 13 May 2021. The calculated shutdown gap is 6 days.
Accumulated price analog: from 3.530 dollars a gallon in the week ending 21 February 2022 to 5.006 in the week ending 13 June 2022. The accumulated analog is 41.8 percent. That figure is calculated from those two prints.
Long-horizon capacity, not a gasoline percent: 7.2 billion cubic feet per day of LNG is under construction for 2029-2031, and 56 percent of 2025 SPA volumes were indexed to Henry Hub. The first-half 2022 TTF print of 32.42 dollars per million Btu remains the historical price ceiling on the same page as the first-half 2026 print of 14.74.
Wave 1 is energy infrastructure: LNG terminals, crude and NGPL docks, interstate product pipelines, refineries, and wholesale racks. The Colonial shutdown is the observed week-1 path. Marine carriers and fuel trucking are Wave 1 indirect because they stop when the dock, the line, or the rack stops.
Wave 2 is enterprise systems that schedule cargoes and finance them: trading and scheduling, and trade finance and marine insurance. The physical plant can be intact while nominations and invoices stop. This ordering is a planning inference.
Wave 3 is the distributed set: 121,852 convenience fuel stores and oilfield service firms. A point-of-sale ransomware event is direct at the store. It is later than a pipeline shutdown. This ordering is a planning inference.
sitessites
121,852 stores
NACSplantsplants
130 operable refineries
EIAdaysdays
The calculated shutdown gap is 6 days
DOEratespercent
95 percent of volumes sold
EIAConfirm which ethane and propane cargoes are nominated to China against the 295 and 232 thousand barrel per day baseline, and which SPAs have destination flexibility.
Put product-pipeline and terminal control systems on the week-1 watch. The Colonial record is a full shutdown measured in days.
Pre-clear alternate discharge for crude that can still move to the Netherlands, South Korea, Canada, Taiwan, and Japan, using the 2025 barrel totals as the book that does not need China.
Watch the weekly regular gasoline print against the one-week analog of 13.7 percent and the finished-gasoline stock print of 13,940 thousand barrels.
Rank tubular-goods inventory against the unpublished Taiwan tonnage. The only public oil-and-gas figure opened is the 73.68 to 75.31 percent margin range.
Keep West Coast product supply on a separate plan from the Gulf Coast. PADD 5 has already lost 5 percent of capacity at Los Angeles, and Gulf-to-West pipeline links are thin.
Weekly U.S. regular gasoline, one-week percent change. Act when the weekly U.S. regular gasoline price rises by more than 7 percent in one week. Seven percent is a planning line set against the calculated 13.7 percent move from 3.608 to 4.102 dollars a gallon. EIA does not publish this tripwire.
Major product pipeline, days down. Act when a major product pipeline is down more than 6 days. Six days is the calculated gap from the 7 May 2021 Colonial shutdown to the 13 May 2021 full restart. The 6-day line is that analog, not a DOE operating rule.
Finished motor gasoline stocks, thousand barrels. Act when finished motor gasoline stocks print below 13,940 thousand barrels. That figure is the 30 October 2026 print. It is a planning line at the latest observed level, not an EIA minimum, and it is not days of supply.
Ethane exports to China, thousand barrels per day. Act when monthly ethane exports to China fall below 147.5 thousand barrels per day. Half of the 2025 average of 295 is 147.5, and that half is calculated. The 147.5 line is a planning line. EIA does not publish a minimum China ethane rate.
Split nominations into China-named and destination-flexible volumes before week 1.
Pre-clear Canada pipeline ethane, India tanker ethane, and the non-China propane buyers already in the 2025 data.
Mark LNG cargoes to the Egypt and Northwest Europe buyers already taking 2026 lifts.
Run a 6-day rack-outage case for East Coast terminals.
Keep West Coast supply on its own balance after the PADD 5 capacity cut.
Isolate control-system access from scheduling networks.
Stage a manual point-of-sale path for the 121,852-store channel.
Watch weekly gasoline against the 7 percent planning line and tanks against rack status.
Reprice only cargoes whose discharge port is China.
Leave Netherlands, South Korea, Canada, and Taiwan crude on the continuing book.
U.S. regular gasoline, dollars a gallon The one-week analog is the move from 3.608 to 4.102, a calculated 13.7 percent. A weekly print is the early price signal for retailers.
Finished motor gasoline ending stocks, thousand barrels The 30 October 2026 print is 13,940. Track the level. Do not relabel it as days of supply.
Ethane and propane exports to China, thousand barrels per day The 2025 baselines are 295 ethane and 232 propane. A break in the monthly rate is the export-book signal.
Product pipeline operating status, days down The Colonial calculated gap is 6 days from 7 May 2021 to 13 May 2021. Days down is the domestic physical signal.
LNG exports to China, million cubic feet The series is already 546 million cubic feet for 2025 after 212,837 in 2024. A further zero is a small incremental loss next to the liquids book.
Observed baselines are the EIA tables, the DOE Colonial dates, the NACS count, the CISA energy-sector description, and the Commerce margin range. Scenario inferences are the wave order, the ability to renominate China ethane, and any claim that a 2027 price path will match 2022.
Decision-changing limits. No dollar revenue for the China ethane slice was on the pages opened, so the underwritable figure is 295 thousand barrels per day. Finished gasoline stocks of 13,940 thousand barrels are not days of supply. The 130 refineries are not split by firm size, and a terminal census was not opened. LNG voyage days and charter rates were not on the pages opened. BLS employment was not fetched. The OCTG initiation prints margins of 73.68 to 75.31 percent for Taiwan and does not print tons. The preliminary page prints 239,959,689 kilograms and does not print a share of all U.S. OCTG imports. The HS 8481 valve table has no Taiwan row. Other Asia, nes is not Taiwan. Sales to Taiwan are not an import dependency. A control-system share and an LNG heat-exchanger share remain unpublished.
eia.goveia.goveia.govpublic-inspection.federalregister.govtrade.govwits.worldbank.org
Calculated figures use two printed inputs and are labeled. Crude shares use the destination-table barrels divided by 1,445,867. The gasoline 13.7 percent uses 4.102 and 3.608. The 41.8 percent uses 5.006 and 3.530. The ethane cross-check uses 295 and 579,000. The shutdown gap uses 7 May 2021 and 13 May 2021. The planning half of ethane uses 295 divided by 2, which is 147.5. The 7 percent gasoline tripwire is a planning line set against 13.7 percent, not a claimed exact half.
India's crude barrel total is blank on the destination table that was opened and is not estimated. Propane's China share of the rounded 1.8 million barrels per day is not calculated. The Volt Typhoon page is used for the advisory title. Victim-sector claims that were not in the fetched body are not used. The stale generation mix on the CISA energy page is not used.
| Node | Primary impact | Time horizon | Cyber wave | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| LNG export terminals | Export schedules slip when a terminal's control system or power is down, but China was already a negligible LNG buyer. | 0-3 months | Wave 1 (direct) | eia.gov LNG exports and China series |
| Crude and NGPL export docks | Ethane and propane cargoes to China stop; Netherlands, South Korea, Canada, and Taiwan crude cargoes can still load. | 0-3 months | Wave 1 (direct) | eia.gov China rates and crude destinations |
| Interstate product pipelines | A multi-day shutdown stops gasoline and diesel from reaching East Coast terminals. | 0-3 months | Wave 1 (direct) | energy.gov Colonial incident |
| Petroleum refineries | A control-system outage cuts fuel output that the domestic market still needs. | 0-3 months | Wave 1 (direct) | eia.gov refinery capacity |
| Wholesale fuel terminals | Terminal racks are the handoff from pipeline or ship to truck. | 0-3 months | Wave 1 (direct) | energy.gov Colonial incident |
| Marine carriers | Voyages lengthen when a loading port or destination terminal will not take the ship. | 0-6 months | Wave 1 (indirect) | eia.gov NGPL and LNG SPA notes |
| Fuel trucking | Trucks cannot lift product if the rack or the pipeline behind it is down. | 0-3 months | Wave 1 (indirect) | energy.gov Colonial incident |
| Convenience fuel retailers | Stations run dry when the rack stops, and a ransomware event can close the point of sale. | 0-3 months | Wave 3 (direct) | convenience.org store count |
| Trading and scheduling systems | Nominations and invoices stop even when the physical plant is intact. | 0-6 months | Wave 2 (direct) | eia.gov China liquids and SPA terms |
| Oilfield service firms | Work stops when crews cannot reach wells or cannot get paid. | 1-12 months | Wave 3 (direct) | eia.gov NGPL exports; Commerce OCTG initiation |
| Trade finance and marine insurance | Lenders and hull underwriters reprice cargoes that no longer have a Chinese discharge port. | 0-6 months | Wave 2 (direct) | eia.gov China liquids and crude destinations |