South China's Guangdong province plans to build its own strategic oil reserves following severe oil shortages last year, a local government official said Feb. 24. The Guangdong government intends to build a 10-million-cubic-meter (350-million-cubic feet) crude oil reserve, said an official with the Guangdong National Development and Reform Commission. It intends to build another two-million-cubic-meter reserve for oil products, with the total cost of the project to reach five billion yuan (US$620 million).
The director of the Guangdong National Development and Reform Commission, Chen Shanru, said the project would begin this year and be completed by 2010, according to the China Business News.
Guangdong currently has commercial oil reserves that can only hold supplies for five to seven days, according to the paper. The state-run strategic reserve will be able to hold supplies for half a year.
China began building four strategic oil reserve bases in the eastern provinces of Zhejiang, Shandong and Liaoning more than a year ago.
Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2006
