By Elsie Hung, Research Associate, Center for Energy Studies, and Gabriel Collins, J.D., Baker Botts Fellow in Energy & Environmental Regulatory Affairs
Although China is now the world’s second-largest oil consumer, comprehensive and publicly available maps of its oil-related infrastructure remain scarce. Various sources each show sub-portions of the pipes, plants, and tanks that keep motors humming and chemical plants producing. However, we have not yet located an integrated, single-point map that ties the infrastructure networks together and makes it available free of charge to the public. In response, we are releasing the Baker Institute China Oil Map in the hope that an open, comprehensive, and regularly updated source of vital China oil infrastructure data can help facilitate improved analysis by a broader range of participants. The map can be accessed directly by clicking here. Figure 1 provides a snapshot of the map interface as a user would see it in its most zoomed-out incarnation.
Figure 1: Baker Institute China Oil Map Snapshot
Map plotted by Elsie Hung, Center for Energy Studies.
We currently focus on the largest fixed infrastructure for crude oil and refined products, which means trunk pipelines, refineries, and storage facilities. Our platform is designed to be a “living map,” since China’s dynamic oil sector and its associated physical footprint are continually evolving. The present map is a beta version and is likely missing some pieces of existing infrastructure. The challenge of China’s geographic expanse — it is roughly the same area as the U.S. Lower 48 — is compounded by a lack of transparency on the part of China’s government. Accordingly, as we learn of additional items, we will revise and update the map.
The China Oil Map provides an online, interactive, and comprehensive visualization of China’s key oil infrastructure. The map’s current iteration focuses on four core categories of infrastructure: (1) crude oil pipelines, (2) refined product pipelines, (3) oil refineries, (4) crude oil and products storage facilities, and (5) oil ports. The map strives to provide the data on a facility-by-facility level and includes as many as possible of the following data points: facility name, location, owner/operator, designed capacity and operating status. 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.
The data collated and presented to date in the map account for a significant portion of total known pipeline, refinery and tank storage capacity in China. As of March 2020, the China Oil Map had the following total coverage by infrastructure type:
Table 1: China Oil Map Data Coverage Compared to Public Estimates
|
Indicators |
China Oil 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) |
22.3 |
17.3 |
2019 |
|
Crude storage capacity (MBBL) |
706.1 |
760.0 |
2020 |
|
Product storage capacity (MBBL) |
357.0 |
N/A |
|
|
Oil port throughout capacity (MBD) |
15.3 |
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.
An immediate focus centers on the question of what is missing from the China Oil Map that could make it better. One weakness of the existing map is that it provides solid coverage of asset stock, but not the flows through that stock. Accordingly, the map’s storage facility component would benefit greatly from including actual inventory data that could be updated on a regular basis, most likely using satellite analysis of tank levels. Directly obtaining pipeline flow data may be a tougher task, but if the map can deeply integrate data on refinery runs, inventory changes, and inbound crude oil volumes from pipelines and tanker offloadings, it could open the door to making reasonable estimates as to the pipeline flows between selected facilities during a given period.
The China Oil Map will incorporate additional data points in the near future. The map will likely also eventually include an increasing amount of data on China’s upstream oil industry as we find ways to cost-effectively and time-efficiently obtain such information. As these processes unfold, we would 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.
The China Oil Map will also serve as a template for building a similar geospatial representation of China’s burgeoning natural gas sector. The methodologies used to collect and map natural gas infrastructure will be similar to those used for crude oil and refined products, but the greater concentration of gas trunk pipelines, storage facilities, LNG terminals, and large-scale consumption points (i.e., power plants and factories) are likely to enable an even higher degree of coverage. However, tracking natural gas inventory levels in the absence of reasonable government and company data disclosures may prove tougher since gas movements are less amenable to remote sensing techniques that help analysts track oil and refined product flows.[2]
Data
Data sources included, but were not limited to:
Technical Framework
We created the initial list of facility names based on the sources listed above, and built the database of China’s oil 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 four primary infrastructure groups: crude pipelines, refined product pipelines, oil refineries, and oil storage facilities. The majority of data was extracted from individual press releases and news articles written in Mandarin Chinese. The stated facility capacity 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.[3]
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, an open source online GIS platform, and added interactivity with Javascript.[4] 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] Examples
[2] 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/ .
[3] https://www.cmegroup.com/tools-information/calc_crude.html
