China's southernmost island province of Hainan is actively seeking to establish an oil
reserve base, a leading local official said on Tuesday.
"We are currently negotiating with international petroleum
syndicates to this end, although I cannot reveal more information
at the moment, " said Wei Liucheng, secretary of the Hainan
Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China.
Wei further declined to specify the precise kind of oil reserve
base Hainan is vying for, merely stating that "Hainan boasts
distinctive advantages in building both a national strategic oil
reserve base and a commercial oil reserve base."
He illustrated the fact that the island lies near main
international oil shipping routes, and that any oil reserve would
be complemented by the 300,000- ton crude oil wharf currently
located in the Yangpu Economic Development Zone on the island.
China is already building four first-phase strategic oil reserve
bases, respectively located in Zhenhai and?Daishan in Zhejiang Province, Huangdao near Qingdao City
of Shandong Province?and Dalian in Liaoning Province.
The construction of the Zhenhai reserve was the first to be
completed last August, with energy officials adding in early
October that crude filling had begun.
Wei is a deputy to the Tenth National People's Congress (NPC), China's top legislature currently in its
annual session in Beijing. His remarks came at
a panel discussion of Hainan lawmakers on Tuesday morning.
(Xinhua News Agency March 6, 2007)