China to stockpile more oil

BEIJING, March 8 Chinadaily-- South China's Guangdong Province is in discussions with the central government over a proposal to build strategic oil reserve bases in the region.

tanks will be built in Guangdong's Zhanjiang city and Huizhou city, as Huang Huahua, the governor of the southern province said yesterday on the sidelines of the fifth session of the 10th National People's Congress.

decided in 2003 to build strategic oil reserves to curb possible future shortages.

one of the project, to be completed in 2008, includes four strategic oil stockpiles with a total capacity of 16.2 million cubic meters.

are located in Zhenhai and Zhoushan in east China's Zhejiang Province, Huangdao in east China's Shandong Province, and Dalian in NE China's Liaoning Province.

two of the project calls for more bases that will store 28 million tons of oil.

sites include: Hainan Island, cities in Guangdong Province and Gansu Province in NW China.

Liucheng, Communist Party chief of China's southernmost province of Hainan, said the island also wants to build an oil reserve base for either strategic or commercial use.

to give more details, Wei said the provincial government was negotiating with international petroleum syndicates.

boasts distinctive advantages for building both national strategic oil reserve base and commercial oil reserve base," he said.

imported 47 percent of its oil last year.

Kai, minister of the National Development and Reform Commission, said yesterday the country had been actively establishing oil reserves to ensure national energy and economic security.

nation's oil imports in January rose 3.5 percent to a record of 13.7 million metric tons (3.2 million barrels a day), the General Administration of Customs said last month.

addition to fulfilling its oil reserve plans, the Guangdong governor also revealed yesterday that the province would strictly monitor the province's big energy enterprises to restrict their waste discharge.

measures include satellite surveillance of industrial areas, and prosecuting firms that breach pollution laws.

offenders will be blacklisted and named by the government.

governor said the province's major thermal power plants would be equipped with desulfurizing filters this year to reduce air pollution.

southern province, one of the country's biggest energy consumers, maintains the lowest level nationwide of energy consumption rate per unit GDP value, Huang said.

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