China Accelerates Filling Up Its Oil Reserves

From The Wall Street Journal:

As the U.S. seeks to stockpile oil, China has been doing the same, observers say, and is expected to quicken the pace — a development that already may be helping to boost oil prices.

On Friday, the U.S. Department of Energy said that amid low oil prices, it aims to fill the country’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve to capacity this year.

That news followed a rare public statement last week from China’s top energy official, Zhang Guobao, head of the National Energy Administration, in the People’s Daily newspaper that China should take advantage of the falling global energy demand to increase its oil reserves. Mr Zhang said China will “encourage companies to utilize idle storage capacity to increase inventories.”