The volume of oil transported by SPG's Qingdao Port has exceeded 50 million tons, as of mid-October. [Photo/WeChat account: Shandong-Port]

As of 6 pm on Oct 15, the volume of oil transported by the Dongjiakou-Weifang-Central and Northern Shandong Oil Pipeline belonging to Qingdao Port of Shandong Port Group (SPG) exceeded 50 million tons. In the future, greater efforts will be made to boost infrastructure with domestic circulation as its mainstay but that supports both domestic and international circulation, and to promote the replacement of old growth drivers with new ones in Shandong province.

Tremendous improvements in safety, environmental protection, and services are obvious benefits behind this figure. Pipeline transportation has resulted in nearly 1.65 million less oil trucks and a nearly 880,000 ton reduction in carbon dioxide emissions. It has also greatly reduced the safety risks brought about by road transportation, thus cutting nearly 2 billion yuan ($300.7 million) in logistics cost for oil refineries in Shandong.

With the goal of forming a whole-process logistical chain featuring one-stop and end-to-end for the oil sector, Qingdao Port has spent three years building the first three phases of the Dongjiakou-Weifang-Central and Northern Shandong Pipeline since August 2016. The pipelines transports crude oil between the Yellow River basin and the Bohai Bay basin and has an annual transport capacity of 30 million tons.

Qingdao Port has also built three oil tanks in Weifang, Guangrao, and Qingdong, which have a combined storage capacity of 2.1 million cubic meters. The oil pipeline passes through five prefecture-level cities, including Qingdao, Weifang, Dongying, Binzhou and Zibo, 18 districts and counties, 55 townships, and 413 villages. It has a total length of 972.3 kilometers and is directly connected to 12 oil refineries.

At the beginning of this year, pipelines played an important role in oil transport, as road transport was negatively affected by the COVID-19 outbreak. Qingdao Port has made strong efforts to reopen refineries, taking full advantage of its potential and of modern logistics services in order to ensure the delivery of crude oil. As a result, several production records have been set despite the COVID-19 pandemic, with more than 110,000 cubic meters of oil being transported daily more than 2.73 million tons being delivered monthly.