Northeast Asian countries including South Korea will provide “enough demand growth” for the company’s China division to expand sales, Quek Chin Thean, chief executive officer of unit Brightoil Petroleum (Singapore) Pte, said in an interview in Singapore on Aug. 8. He didn’t provide comparative figures for last year.

“We are looking at strengthening our overall supply chain, developing tanks in China,” Quek said. The company estimated that China’s bonded bunker demand was at 9 million metric tons last year. The world’s second-biggest crude user consumed 17 million tons of the fuel in 2010, the company said.

Brightoil, which currently leases fuel storage in China, is building tanks along the country’s north and east coast to tap rising demand. The centers being built at Zhoushan in Zhejiang province and Dalian in Liaoning, will store as much as 17.5 million cubic meters of fuel, according to Brightoil. Rotterdam- based Royal Vopak NV, the world’s largest chemical and oil- storage company, has a capacity of 25.6 million cubic meters.

China’s demand for fuel oil, which includes bunker fuel and grades used by power plants, is forecast to rise 0.7 percent this year to 535,000 barrels a day, according to the International Energy Agency report yesterday.

Brightoil, which has leased 500,000 tons of fuel-storage capacity in Singapore, has no immediate plans to rent more at the world’s biggest bunkering port, Quek said. That’s because it plans to use its offices in Singapore and Geneva to support its bunkering business in China, where the bulk of the company’s expansion is taking place.

Brightoil’s total fuel sales were at 3.4 million tons in the six months ended Dec. 31. That was 87 percent of the 3.9 million tons sold in the year ended June 30, 2010. The increase resulted from expanded operations in Singapore at the end of last year and in China, according to Quek.