China faces oil challenge as prices soar and supply options narrow

Oil prices in China have surged to record highs amid mounting disruptions to exports from the Middle East, as Beijing faces an increasingly difficult balancing act between securing its own energy supplies and preventing global oil prices from climbing even higher. Saudi Arabia has been forced to shut a key pipeline that had become an important route for getting oil to China and other Asian markets while disruption in the Strait of Hormuz restricted exports through the Gulf. The pipeline, which carries crude across the Arabian Peninsula to the Red Sea, was shut following attacks by an Iran-backed group in Iraq.