Construction of the Daxie underground commercial oil reserve storage project, China's largest, started on Dec 9.
Once operational, the facility is expected to realize rapid storage, processing and digestion of imported crude oil, guaranteeing the country's stable oil and gas supply.
Located in Beilun District, Ningbo in East China's Zhejiang Province, the Daxie commercial storage project was independently designed and is being constructed by China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC).
The project includes construction of a 3 million-cubic-meter underground crude oil cavern tank, as well as ground-based crude oil storage and transportation facilities and other supporting facilities.
Taking advantage of the stable underground water table pressure as a groundwater seal, the project is expected to play well in capacity, safety and loss of stored products.
Adopting CNOOC's self-developed technologies, underground crude oil cave tanks are expected to serve 50 years without maintenance.
At present, ground-based storage tanks and underground water-sealed cavern storage are the two main ways to reserve oil in China.
Compared to the ground-based storage tanks, the underground reserving method is safe and reliable, and has about 20 and 50 percent less construction cost and operating cost, respectively.
What's more, the underground ones take less land than the ground-based ones and have outstanding performance in environmental protection.
A virtual twin factory is planned to be built together with the real plant and the design integration platform and digital delivery platform are to be used during construction.
The project is scheduled to be put into service by the end of 2026. Once operational, it will support stability of the oil and gas supply in East China and regions along the Yangtze River. It will also play a key role in guaranteeing national energy security and enriching digital transformation of the energy industry.
(Executive editor: Xie Yunxiao)
