The third phase is expected to finish in 2020, said Yin Zhen, deputy director of the planning bureau at the Transport Research Institute under the NDRC.
Yin said that facilities for the third-phase strategic oil reserves may be built in Wanzhou in Chongqing Municipality, in Henan Province and in Caofeidian, Hebei Province.
In 2003, the Chinese government approved a plan to spend RMB 100 billion building strategic crude oil reserves in three phases over 15 years.
The first phase established four facilities, one in Dalian, Liaoning Province, one in Huangdao, Shandong Province and one each in Zhoushan and Zhenhai, both in Zhejiang Province. The total combined capacity of the four first-phase facilities is 16.4 million cubic meters or 102 million barrels.
The construction of the second phase facilities is expected to begin this year and to finish in three to four years. The second phase comprises eight storage facilities with a total combined capacity of 26.8 million cubic meters or about 169 million barrels.