PetroChina To Increase Storage Capacity By 2010
China National Petroleum Corporation, the parent company of PetroChina Company Ltd. (PetroChina) said that its Daqing oilfield will add eight crude oil storage tanks by 2010 after having installed two such tanks for offloading Russian oil. The 10 tanks alone, with planned capacity of 150,000 cubic meters each, will increase Daqing's crude oil storage capacity by around 10 million barrels. China is set to supply oil to Russia following the recent oil-for-loan agreement between the two countries.China agreed in April 2009 to provide $10 billion to Transneft and another $15 billion to state-run oil major Rosneft in exchange for supplies via pipeline shipment of 300 million tonnes of Russian oil over 20 years.
The planned pipeline that will be used to supply Russian oil ends at the Daqing oilfield. China currently gets most of its Russian oil supplies via rail.
Oil production at Daqing has been on a decline after decades of extraction.
CNPC hopes for steady output from Daqing while making it an important oil stockpiling base.
