China’s Oil Stockpiling Suggests Fossil Fuel Dependency Unlikely to Decline
In a rare admission of China’s strategic petroleum reserve capacity, a senior industry executive acknowledged that all four state-owned emergency oil reserve tanks – holding a total 100 million barrels – are filled to the brim.
Revealing that China’s current stockpiles have already exceeded the capacity of the first phase of facilities, which the government built over the last two years, China Shipping Group President Li Shaode urged the government to use foreign exchange reserves to finance floating storage capacity in the short term.
Li’s comments come after a string of recent oil- and gas-related events in China. Within the last few months, China has entered into natural gas supply agreements with Myanmar, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, and has already begun construction on needed pipelines. Just yesterday, China National Offshore Oil Company (CNOOC) signed a 25 year gas supply agreement with Qatar.
