At present, when the thought of "reverse globalization" surges, how to improve the efficiency and potential of petroleum import under the Belt and Road Initiative is the key to ensure the energy and economic security of China in the new period. Based on the panel data of China and 42 major petroleum countries and areas during the period from 1998 to 2016, this paper constructs the stochastic frontier model of heterogeneity, which can effectively identify the inefficient factors of China's petroleum import and measure the efficiency and potential of China's petroleum import. The results show that there is a certain efficiency loss in China's petroleum import, and the trade efficiency between China and different countries and regions suggests different characteristics, especially the trade efficiency between China and Saudi Arabia, and the efficiency between China and Mongolia, Russia and Kazakhstan. The governance of the source countries of petroleum imports and the regional organization, OPEC, will help to reduce the loss of China's petroleum import efficiency, while the regional policy arrangements, such as the Belt and Road Initiative and the WTO, will reduce the uncertainty of the loss of trade efficiency.