15 Jul 2009 14:54

Sinopec Group to take charge of two strategic crude oil reserve depots

Shanghai. July 15. INTERFAX-CHINA - China Petrochemical Corp. (Sinopec Group), the country's second-largest oil company, will take over operations of two of China's strategic crude oil reserve depots from the State-owned Asset Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC), state media reported on July 15.

SASAC, which is a large shareholder in Sinopec Group, will hand over operations of the Huangdao Oil Reserve Base in Shandong Province and the Zhenhai Oil Reserve Base in Zhejiang Province to Sinopec Group's pipeline subsidiary, state-run China Securities Journal reported.

The Huangdao depot has a storage capacity of 3.2 million cubic meters and has been operational since November 2008, the paper said. The Zhenhai depot has a storage capacity of 5.2 million cubic meters and has been operational since August 2006.

Apart from Huangdao and Zhenhai, China has a crude oil reserve depot in Dalian City in Liaoning Province and another in Zhoushan City in Zhejiang. These two depots have a combined storage capacity of 12 million cubic meters and are still operated by SASAC.

China is now planning to build eight more crude oil reserve depots in eight other cities with a combined storage capacity of 26.8 million cubic meters. So far, only Tianjin and Jinzhou have been confirmed as cities that will be home to the depots.

-WV