China Changjiang Bunker (Sinopec) Co inks an agreement with Zhoushan Port Free Trade Zone on March 19 to build its bonded fuel center in the city of Zhoushan, East China's Zhejiang province. [Photo/zj.zjol.com]

China Changjiang Bunker (Sinopec) Co inked an agreement with Zhoushan Port Free Trade Zone on March 19 to build its bonded fuel center in the city of Zhoushan, East China's Zhejiang province, local media reported that day.

It will be the second one in the city that deals with bonded fuel supply for international voyage ships after a previous Sinopec global bunker fuel supply center settled there last June.

The China Changjiang company, jointly established by Sinopec Sales Co and China Changjiang National Shipping Group Co, a large domestic inland shipping company, is one of the main bunker fuel suppliers in the Yangtze River Delta.

According to the deal, the two sides will cooperate in conducting bonded bunker fuel business and oil extraction for domestic trade.

"We target 300,000 metric tons for the total amount of bonded fuel supply and domestic fuel transaction by this year, 500,000 tons by next year and 1 million tons within three years," said Qiu Xianfu, executive director of the China Changjiang Zhoushan Company.

Zhoushan has been devoted to boosting its bonded fuel business over the past two years, with a goal of building itself into a bonded fuel bunkering hub in Northeast Asia.

It has conducted bonded fuel blending business and released numerous policies to facilitate customs clearance for bonded fuel supplies. 

Statistics show that the city supplied around 3.6 million tons of bonded bunker fuel in 2018, up 96.5 percent year on year and accounting for nearly one third of the nation's total supply of the oil. 

It has thus become the largest bunker fuel supply port in China and one of the top ten in the world.

The landing of the China Changjiang bonded fuel center in Zhoushan will help expand the city's oil trade, boost the development of a whole oil and gas industrial chain in the city, and enhance its role in China as a hub for bunker fuel transactions.