China Builds Massive Natural Gas Stockpile, Increases Storage 83% in 3 Years

China has dramatically expanded its ability to store natural gas, building vast underground facilities that can hold 26.6 billion cubic meters of gas by the end of 2023. This represents an 83% jump from the 14.5 billion cubic meters the country could store just three years earlier.

The storage tanks and underground facilities are part of China's decade-long push to stockpile critical supplies. The country has been accumulating everything from food like pork and rice to raw materials like rare-earth metals and coal.

China also built nine oil storage bases with capacity for 238 million barrels, according to the last public update from 2017. The actual current capacity is likely much higher but kept secret.

The stockpiling effort aims to protect China from supply disruptions caused by conflicts, trade wars, or natural disasters. Natural gas is particularly hard to store because it takes up huge amounts of space and requires special equipment to keep it pressurized or frozen.

This hoarding strategy could give China more leverage in global energy markets and help it weather future crises better than countries that rely on just-in-time deliveries.