By Elsie Hung, Research Manager, Center for Energy Studies, Gabriel Collins, J.D., Baker Botts Fellow in Energy & Environmental Regulatory Affairs, and Michelle Michot Foss, Ph.D., Fellow in Energy and Minerals
We are releasing the Baker Institute China Energy Map in the hope that an open, comprehensive and regularly updated source of vital China energy infrastructure data can help facilitate improved analysis by a broad range of participants. The map can be accessed directly by clicking here. Figure 1 provides a snapshot of the map with every facility visible in its most zoomed-out incarnation.
Figure 1: Baker Institute China Energy Map Snapshot
Map plotted by Elsie Hung, Center for Energy Studies.
The China Energy Map provides an online, interactive and comprehensive visualization of China’s key energy infrastructure. Since the first release of the Baker Institute China Oil Map in February 2019, the map has evolved significantly and continues to grow. In addition to the existing oil infrastructure layers, including (1) crude oil pipelines, (2) refined product pipelines, (3) oil refineries, (4) crude oil and products storage facilities, and (5) oil ports, as of July 2020 we have mapped three new layers: (6) coal power plants, (7) nuclear power plants, and (8) EV battery factories to more accurately capture China’s complete energy system.
Click here for an independent interactive time slider map on the relationship between China’s power fleet and rising EV industry.
By clicking each icon or line on the map, facility level information is displayed in the popup tooltip, including: facility name, operator, status, year online, designed capacity, and additional infrastructure details. As of July 2020, the China Energy Map had the following total coverage by infrastructure type:
Table 1: China Energy Map Data Coverage Compared to Public Estimates
Indicators |
China Energy Map Tabulated Capacity |
Most Recent Publicly Available Capacity Estimate |
Year of Estimate Baseline Data |
Crude pipelines length (thousand km) |
25.4 |
28.7 |
2017 |
Crude pipelines capacity (MBD) |
23.0 |
14.5 |
2018 |
Refined pipelines length (thousand km) |
27.9 |
27.2 |
2017 |
Refined pipelines capacity (MBD) |
7.7 |
4.9 |
2015 |
Oil refineries capacity (MBD) |
22.7 |
17.3 |
2019 |
Crude storage capacity (MBBL) |
764 |
760 |
2020 |
Product storage capacity (MBBL) |
359 |
N/A |
|
Oil port throughout capacity (MBD) |
15.3 |
N/A |
|
Coal power plants operating capacity (GW) |
997 |
1040 |
2019 |
Nuclear power plants operating capacity (GW) |
45 |
49 |
2019 |
EV battery factories (number of units) |
185 |
N/A |
Sources: National Development and Reform Commission of China, http://www.ndrc.gov.cn/zcfb/zcfbtz/201701/W020170119333354977981.pdf;
Ruining Hou, January 16, 2019, https://www.jiemian.com/article/2798250.html;
Shivani Singh and Muyu Xu, Jan 16, 2020, Reuters, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-economy-output-oil/chinas-2019-and-december-crude-oil-runs-hit-record-highs-idUSKBN1ZG0AS;
Muyu Xu, Shu Zhang, and Devika Krishna Kumar, Feb 13, 2020, Reuters, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-health-oil-storage/stranded-tankers-full-storage-tanks-coronavirus-leads-to-crude-glut-in-china-idUSKBN2072NR;
China Electricity Council, April 26, 2020, https://www.cec.org.cn/detail/index.html?1-281670.
The data collated and presented to date in the map account for a significant portion of total known capacity in China. We will frequently update the map as we learn more about infrastructure we already have included, as well as newly constructed facilities and those we were not aware of before.
An immediate focus centers on the question of what is missing from the China Energy Map that could make it better. One weakness of the existing map is that it provides solid coverage of asset stock and designed capacity, but not the physical flows through that stock. Accordingly, the map would benefit greatly from including real time data[1] that could be updated on a regular basis, such as pipeline flow, refinery runs, inventory changes, tanker offloading, and real-time electricity output by plant.
As the map continues to evolve, we plan to include additional infrastructure layers such as EV manufacturing sites, battery mineral mines and processing plants, and ultimately natural gas infrastructure (pipelines, storage sites, LNG terminals and processing plants) to the China Energy Map. We welcome formal and informal collaboration with other parties who would like to provide data that enhances the map, and who are willing to do so under an open source philosophy. Interested parties can contact the author(s) at elsie.hung@rice.edu.
Data
Data sources included, but were not limited to:
Data displayed on the China Energy Map has been confirmed with multiple sources before mapping. Specifically, with the difficulties to track individual EV battery manufacturers, we verified each EVB facility with 2019/2020 job postings in addition to company websites/lookup pages. The facility is omitted from the database if: 1) no factory sites are seen on the satellite image, 2) the address found indicates a suit/office building, or 3) the address refers to previously established company.
Technical Framework
We created the initial list of facility names based on the sources listed above, and built the database of China’s energy infrastructure using a deep internet search to collect as much facility-level information as possible. Relevant data included name, location (latitude/longitude coordinates), owner/operator, designed capacity, operating status, and the year the facility entered service.
We targeted five primary oil and three electricity infrastructure groups: crude pipelines, refined product pipelines, oil refineries, oil storage facilities, oil ports, coal power plants, nuclear power plants, and EV battery factories. The majority of data was extracted from individual press releases and news articles written in Mandarin Chinese. The specified facility capacity for oil infrastructure was generally converted from 10,000 metric tons (per year), which is conventional for the Chinese oil sector, to a thousand barrels (per day) using the CME Group conversion calculator, which uses a ratio of 7.33 barrels per metric ton of crude oil.[2]
Next we mapped individual infrastructure groups in vector layers (i.e., lines and points) with attribute information using QGIS, an open source GIS application. With these geospatial data, we built the online map utilizing Mapbox, a web-based GIS platform, and added interactivity with Javascript. We will continue to improve the user interface and appearance of this beta version map. The data is expected to be updated quarterly to reflect any new addition, expansion, and retirement of facilities.
Descriptions of Data Layers in the China Oil Map
Map interactive functions
[1] See, for instance, Gabriel Collins and Elsie Hung, "Using Satellite Data to Crack the Great Wall of Secrecy Around China’s Internal Oil Flows," Baker Institute Report no. 09.07.18. Baker Institute for Public Policy, Houston, Texas. https://www.bakerinstitute.org/research/using-satellites-study-chinese-oil/ .
[2] https://www.cmegroup.com/tools-information/calc_crude.html