The oil and gas industry in China (Zhejiang) Pilot Free Trade Zone has become a new economic driver of Zhoushan and the province. [Photo/WeChat account: china-zjftz]

The oil and gas industry in China (Zhejiang) Pilot Free Trade Zone, most of which is located in Zhoushan, East China's Zhejiang province, experienced rapid growth in 2020, becoming a new economic driver of Zhoushan and the province, local media reported.

Natural gas and oil products made up the majority of Zhoushan's foreign trade last year.

In 2020, Zhoushan imported 23.18 million metric tons of crude oil, a year-on-year increase of 250 percent, and exported 8.61 million tons of refined oil products, a year-on-year increase of 30.8 percent.

In the same year, Zhoushan imported 1.78 million tons of liquefied natural gas, a year-on-year increase of 150 percent and worth 3.81 billion yuan.

A large number of private companies involved in the oil product industry started operations in Zhejiang FTZ last year, with 1,880 of the 7,357 newly registered companies in the FTZ being oil product companies. Those companies traded more than 558 billion yuan ($86.09 billion) in oil products in 2020.

Last year, Zhejiang FTZ offered 7,517 ships with more than 4.72 million tons of bonded bunker oil, a year-on-year increase of 15.14 percent, ranking first in China and eighth in the world.

Zhejiang FTZ also provided $2.4 billion worth of supplies to international ships in 2020, a year-on-year increase of 9.1 percent, while the repair of international ships generated 5.51 billion yuan in output value, up 24.7 percent year-on-year.