China Opens Up on Oil Reserves China is lifting some of the secrecy around its stockpiling of oil reserves, as it disclosed for the first time that the first phase of its strategic petroleum reserves contains about 91 million barrels. The disclosure on Thursday follows a pledge by President Xi Jinping to provide regular updates on the size of its emergency stockpile. China’s National Bureau of Statistics said that phase one of its strategic petroleum reserves contained 12.43 million metric tons of oil, or about 91 million barrels, across four sites. The statement didn’t disclose the size of its second or third phases of reserves. By contrast, the U.S. strategic petroleum reserve has a capacity of 727 million barrels. China consumes about 10 million barrels a day. China intends to construct facilities that can hold up to 500 million barrels of oil by 2020, according to the […]