CHINA plans to build a second strategic oil reserve in the northwest as it fills the tanks of its first reserve along the east coast, a news report said yesterday.

The country is constructing oil reserves to insulate its economy from possible disruptions in foreign supplies. The United States also operates a similar reserve.

Gansu Province in the northwest has been tentatively selected as the site of China’s new reserve, said the newspaper China Petrochemical News, published by State-owned China Petroleum and Chemical Corp.

China’s first oil reserve was built last year in four sites along the east coast in the provinces of Liaoning in the north, Shandong on the east coast and Zhejiang in the southeast.

The second reserve is to have a total storage capacity of 196 million barrels.

According to a Xinhua report yesterday, southernmost island province of Hainan is actively seeking to establish an oil reserve base too.

A leading local official said yesterday at a panel discussion of lawmakers from Hainan that they “are now negotiating with international petroleum syndicates about it.”

Wei Liucheng, secretary of the Hainan Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China, didn’t reveal what kind of oil reserve base the one Hainan plans to build will be, just saying that “Hainan boasts distinctive advantages for building both national strategic oil reserve base and commercial oil reserve base.”

He said the tropical island is located near the main international sea routes for oil shipping, and that a 300,000-ton crude oil wharf is already in operation in the Yangpu Economic Development Zone on the island.

Wei is a deputy to the 10th National People’s Congress (NPC), China’s top legislature now in its annual full session in Beijing.(SD-Agencies)