PETROCHINA Co, China's top oil and gas firm, plans to build a 6.5-billion-yuan (US$855 million) commercial crude oil reserve tank in the northwestern Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, the Shanghai Securities News reported yesterday.

To be located in Shanshan, about 300 kilometers from the regional capital of Urumqi, the project will have a designed storage capacity of 8.1 million cubic meters, according to the report. Construction of the first phase, with one million cubic meters in capacity, will start in August and be completed by the end of 2008. PetroChina started building another commercial crude oil reserve storage facility in late June in Tieling, northeastern China's Liaoning Province, the report said. The company will invest one billion yuan to construct eight tanks, with a storage capacity of 100,000 cubic meters each. The Tieling project is scheduled for completion in October next year.