Bei Hai Wei Wang, a 100,000-ton-capacity vessel, discharges 58,000 tons of oil at the Aoshan Oil Depot of Sinochem Xingzhong Oil Staging (Zhoushan) Co on Dec 4. [Photo/zj.zjol.com]

The oil reserve base on Aoshan Island of Zhoushan witnessed its oil throughput topping 30 million metric tons this year by Dec 4, when another 58,000 tons of oil was discharged at the Aoshan Oil Depot of Sinochem Xingzhong Oil Staging (Zhoushan) Co, the nation's largest commercial oil storage and transporting company.

The figure signals a new record in the annual oil throughput of the base, ranking it among the top oil reserve bases in the nation. 

Driven by the facilitation policies of the China (Zhejiang) Pilot Free Trade Zone, the Aoshan Oil Reserve Base has been committed to building itself into a bunker fuel allocation hub in East China over the years. By providing oil mixing services, it has helped increase the global competitiveness of the city's bunkering business. 

The base pioneered the provision of integrated online financial services for oil transactions in China on Oct 20, in cooperation with China Zheshang Bank and Zhejiang Petrochemical Trading Center. 

It also undertook China's first business of 380CST bonded bunker fuel futures on Nov 14, as one of the three warehouses designated by the Shanghai Futures Exchange for fuel delivery.

In addition, the base invested heavily in developing a digital oil managing system this year for data sharing in oil transportation, and made breakthroughs in related technologies, cutting the oil discharging time for very large crude carriers (VICCs) by one day and boosting the growth of the city's oil foreign trade. 

Statistics show that the city's total oil import and export saw a year-on-year increase of 82.3 percent by the end of October, at nearly 45.3 billion yuan ($6.6 billion), with imports and exports valued at 32.6 billion yuan and 12.7 billion yuan respectively, up 99.2 percent and 49.6 percent from a year earlier.

The Aoshan Oil Depot of Sinochem Xingzhong Oil Staging (Zhoushan) Co in Zhoushan [Photo/zj.zjol.com]

The oil discharging site of the Aoshan Oil Reserve Base in Zhoushan [Photo/cztv.com]