China to stockpile oil in stages

China is to stockpile 30 days' supplies of oil within three years, building up the reserve in stages to 90 days' worth by the end of the decade. Wang Jiming, vice president of China Petrochemical, told the Bloomberg news agency the reserve may expand yet further to cover six months of supplies although no time frame for that move had been set. Wang said the staged approach would help avoid bolstering any further the escalation in world oil prices. China wants to build up its oil inventories to secure energy supplies as it becomes more reliant on imports which now make up 40% of overall consumption. According to a recent Merrill Lynch report, in order to meet minimum 30-day consumption, China will need to stockpile 110m barrels of oil by 2005, and 186m barrels by 2010.