Dutch oil and chemical logistics firm Royal Vopak NV and its state-run Chinese partner will build a massive tank farm in southern China to store 32 million barrels of oil by as early as 2011.
The project, worth some $1 billion as reported earlier by state media, will make Vopak one of a few foreign firms involved in the huge oil storage business long dominated by the country’s state oil companies.
The world’s No. 2 oil consumer is accelerating the building of oil infrastructure from tanks to pipelines, both by the government and companies, to set up a supply buffer as its dependence on imports is set to surge from around 50 percent.
Reuters reports that Shi Zhen, head of the Investment Promotion Bureau of Yangpu Economic Development Zone said construction of the Vopak facility, to be built in China’s southernmost Hainan island, will start in the second half of this year.
The facility includes 5 million cubic metres (about 32 million barrels) of storage tank capacity for both crude oil and refined fuel, a 300,000-tonne crude terminal and smaller berths for oil products.