The underground reserve can hold 3 million cubic meters of crude oil.

Construction of China's largest commercial underground oil storage cavern began in Zhejiang province on December 9.

Located in Ningbo City, the oil storage project was independently designed and developed by China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC). The project includes underground crude oil storage caverns with a total volume of 3 million m3, and aboveground facilities to support operations and transportation. It is expected that the project will promote rapid storage, processing and circulation of imported crude oil upon completion, ensuring a stable domestic oil and gas supply.

Workers will dig a cave from solid rock to store the oil and use the stable groundwater pressure to form a waterproof valve, providing high safety and low leakage. By applying core technologies such as full-condition storage testing, the oil storage cavern can operate for 50 years without maintenance, said Wu Guangzeng, general manager of CNOOC's petrochemical engineering department.

The project is expected to be completed and put into operation by the end of 2026, according to Liu Daping, president of CNOOC’s petrochemical import and export business. The project will provide a stable source of crude oil for eastern China and along the Yangtze River, helping to handle energy emergencies and promoting a balance between local oil supply and demand.

At present, China's commercial oil storage facilities mainly consist of above-ground storage tanks and underground water-sealed caverns. Compared with above-ground storage tanks, the latter allows construction and operation costs to be reduced by about 20% and 50%, respectively. It is also superior in terms of environmental protection, saving about 63.3 hectares of land on the same scale, and solving the problem of oil loss due to evaporation. More than 200 similar oil storage caverns have been built around the world .

An Khang (According to CGTN )

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