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BEIJING - CHINA plans to build tanks in the country's western Chongqing municipality to store strategic supplies of refined oil products, sources said on Tuesday, as parts of the country grapple with lingering fuel shortages.
The Sichuan Management Bureau of Material Reserves has signed an investment deal with the local government in Wanzhou District of Chongqing to build the oil products tanks, a source said.
Total investment and planned storage capacity would reach billions of yuan, a local source said, but the exact figures were not revealed.
Part of the cash would come from compensation the Sichuan bureau received from selling its land and related facilities in some valuable urban areas, another source said.
The Sichuan bureau already has oil products tanks in Sichuan province and Chongqing, the second source said, declining to comment on existing capacity.
The Sichuan Management Bureau of Material Reserves is a unit of the State Bureau of Material Reserves, which in turn comes under the country's top economic and environment planner, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC).
The State Bureau of Material Reserves manages China's strategic reserves of materials such as explosives, metals and oil products. It does not have jurisdiction over crude oil reserves, which Beijing started to build up last year.
Its first phase of reserve tanks, all in the coastal regions, hold around two to three million tonnes of crude, a senior government official said in September.
Officials at NDRC's media department were not available for comment on the report. -- REUTERS
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