World's Energy

04-27-2009 - Upstream OnLine - PetroChina's largest Daqing oilfield will add eight large 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 metres each, will boost Daqing's crude oil storage capacity by nearly 10 million barrels, as China is set to ship in more Russian oil following the recent oil-for-loan deals between the two countries, Xinhua news agency said in a report over the weekend. China agreed this month to lend $10 billion to Russian oil pipeline monopoly 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 transport Russian oil ends at the Daqing oilfield. China currently gets most of its Russian oil supplies via rail. Oil production at Daqing, China's top oilfield by output, has been on a decline after decades of extraction. CNPC, parent of PetroChina, hopes for steady production from Daqing while making it an important oil stockpiling base, the Xinhua report said.