China has enough oil in its strategic reserves to cover one month's consumption and crude oil accounts for three quarters of the stockpile, a senior government official was quoted as saying by a Chinese newspaper on Mar 9.
If the comment is accurate, it suggests the world's second-largest oil importer may have stored 27 million tonnes of crude oil and 9 million tonnes of refined oil products based on last year's oil demand of about 8.7 million barrels per day.
That level of crude inventories, equivalent to about 197 million barrels, would suggest 95 million barrels may have been added into China's second phase storage tanks since it fully filled the first phase in early 2009.
Wang Qingyun, head of the State Bureau of Material Reserve under the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), said the government would build up reserves when it determines there is necessity to do so and stockpiling has little correlation with prices, the newspaper report said.
