South China's Guangdong Province is in discussions with the
central government over a proposal to build strategic oil reserve
bases in the region.
The tanks will be built in Zhanjiang and Huizhou, Huang Huahua,
the governor of the southern province, said yesterday on the
sidelines of the fifth session of the 10th National People's
Congress.
China decided in 2003 to build strategic oil reserves to curb
possible future shortages.
Phase one of the project, to be completed in 2008, includes four
strategic oil stockpiles with a total capacity of 16.2 million
cubic meters.
They are located in Zhenhai and Zhoushan in Zhejiang Province,
Huangdao in Shandong Province, and Dalian in Liaoning Province.
Phase two of the project calls for more bases that will store 28
million tons of oil.
Possible sites include: Hainan Island, cities in Guangdong
Province and Gansu Province.
Wei 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.
Declining to give more details, Wei said the provincial
government was negotiating with international petroleum
syndicates.
"Hainan boasts distinctive advantages for building both national
strategic oil reserve base and commercial oil reserve base," he
said.
China imported 47 percent of its oil last year.
Ma 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.
The nation's oil imports in January rose 3.5 percent to a record
13.7 million metric tons (3.2 million barrels a day), the General
Administration of Customs said last month.
In 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.
New measures include satellite surveillance of industrial areas,
and prosecuting firms that breach pollution laws.
Habitual offenders will be blacklisted and named by the
government.
The governor said the province's major thermal power plants
would be equipped with desulfurizing filters this year to reduce
air pollution.
The 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.
(China Daily March 8, 2007)