China boosts oil storage capacity

China will add 26.8 million cubic metres of storage capacity in the second phase of its strategic oil reserve build-out, the National Development and Reform Commission said today.

It did not provide details about where the bases would be located or how much investment would be involved, wrote Reuters.

The world's second largest oil user will complete the construction of its first phase, including 16.2 million cubic metres of capacity, by the end of this year, but it has remained tight-lipped about when these bases would be filled.

The NDRC said the country will also start building the first major refinery in southwestern China's Sichuan this year, while beginning construction of 10 nuclear reactors with 1 gigawatt of capacity each in coastal Fujian, Zhejiang and Guangdong provinces.

That would be included in a plan to increase infrastructure investment to cope with the impact of the global financial crisis, it said.

The 200,000 barrel-per-day Sichuan refinery was supposed to process crude pumped from the northwestern Xinjiang region and Kazakhstan via a planned pipeline, but all work was suspended following the deadly 12 May earthquake in Sichuan, forcing PetroChina to re-evaluate the feasibility of the project.

The country will also embark on a project to lay natural gas pipelines linking northwestern Ningxia and southern Hong Kong, the NDRC said in a brief announcement on its website.

It is part of the second West-East gas line that would enable the country to ship central Asia fuel to its coastal areas.