China to boost petroleum reserves

The Chinese government said it will construct another eight national strategic oil reserve bases this year. China also will boost the country’s commercial petroleum reserves, said Zhang Guobao, head of China’s National Energy Administration. In light of this, China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC) and China Petroleum and Chemical Corp. (Sinopec) said they will increase the country’s petroleum product reserves. Included in a stimulus package for the petrochemical industry is a plan to store a total of 19 million tons of petroleum products from 2009 to 2010. (February 13/10/5, 2009)