China Filled its First Strategic Oil Reserve Base

China has started filling crude oil into its first strategic petroleum reserve base in Zhenhai, Zhejiang Province, according to sources from the country's energy authority on Friday.

The oil is mainly being supplied by domestic petroleum companies, a Beijing-based economic newspaper quoted Xu Dingming, director general of the Energy Bureau of the National Development and Reform Commission, as saying.

The base in Zhenhai, at the head of the Yonghuning oil pipeline which runs from Ningbo to Shanghai and Nanjing, is close to China's largest refinery, Sinopec Zhenhai Refining and Chemical Company.

The base, costing 3.7 billion yuan (US$464.82 million), has 52 tanks with a total storage capacity of 5.2 million cubic meters.