China expands oil reserve base

China is continuing its second-phase Strategic Petroleum Reserves (SPR) programme by building a 19 mm-barrel government crude reserve base in the north-western city of Lanzhou.
The base should start operations by Q3 2011, and forms part of Beijing's plan to add 170 mm barrels of storage in the second phase after the country filled its first emergency tanks of about 100 mm barrels by early 2009.

The new base, costing yuan 2.378 bn (EUR 241.8 mm) won government approval in November. The tanks will store crude oil pumped from the Xinjiang region as well as supplies from central Kazakhstan, which has been pumping oil to China via a pipeline.
The facility is next to a 200,000 bpd refinery operated by top oil and gas firm PetroChina, which is building at the same time a 1 mm cm, or 6.3 mm barrel tank farm to serve its own refining system.