OREANDA-NEWS. May 27, 2013. China is likely to build more storage sites for its strategic petroleum reserve this year, said the International Energy Agency.

China will add 245m barrels of capacity in the second phase of its emergency stockpile plan, the IEA said in its just released Medium-Term Oil Market Report.

“What is likely is that some additional Phase-2 sites will be commissioned in 2013, which, when considering the probable spare capacity at sites completed in 2012, could buttress China’s demand for crude over the year,” the agency said in the report. “If China completes tanks at Huizhou and Huangdao, which many observers believe likely to be completed in 2013, this could average over 56 million barrels, or 150,000 barrels a day, of incremental oil.”