Speaking at the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference in the capital Beijing on Sunday, former head of China’s National Energy Administration Zhang Guobao said, “China’s crude import costs may be pushed up by tension in Iran as oil prices could rise on supply concern,” Bloomberg news network reported.
Zhang said the prices determine the amount of oil imported by China, adding that Beijing will bring online two emergency crude oil reserve sites this year, without elaborating.
The former Chinese energy head said China has finished the first phase of its emergency stockpile of 103.2 million barrels of oil in 2009 and the second phase is scheduled to be completed by early 2013. The country is still in gas supply talks with Russia.
Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao said on January 19 that China would continue oil trade with Iran in defiance of proposed US and European sanctions on Iranian oil.
Speaking to reporters during the last leg of his Persian Gulf tour in the Qatari capital, Doha, Wen said Beijing would continue normal trade relations with Tehran while supporting UN Security Council resolutions on Iran's nuclear issue.
"China's oil trade with Iran is a normal commercial activity," he added.
The Chinese prime minister said, "I believe that China is not the only country to buy oil from Iran... Legitimate trade has to be protected if global economic chaos is to be avoided."
He also underlined China's firm opposition to development and possession of nuclear weapons by any country, calling for the establishment of a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East.
China's rapid growth in recent years has seen a surge in demand for oil in the country.
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A former Chinese energy official says the world's second-largest crude oil importers will carry on buying oil from Iran irrespective of the sanctions imposed on the Islamic Republic.
News ID 181558
