China: Zhoushan establishes first LNG bonded warehouse to improve bunkering services

China’s Hangzhou Customs on Monday (7 April) announced the successful establishment of the first LNG bonded warehouse in Zhoushan, which will provide support for the development of the oil and gas industry chain of China (Zhejiang) Pilot Free Trade Zone. 

This comes following its approval of the TK04 storage tank of ENN (Zhoushan) LNG in Zhoushan on 31 March, becoming a certified bonded warehouse. 

“The bonded storage tank capacity we applied for this time is 160,000 cubic metre in total. With the support and guidance of Hangzhou Customs, we passed the bonded warehouse acceptance at the fastest speed, laying the foundation for the development of LNG bonded business,” said Liu Biao, ENN (Zhoushan) LNG. 

In recent years, LNG has been quite popular in the energy field, and the international shipping industry has increasingly chosen LNG to replace traditional fuels. In August 2023, the first bonded LNG bunkering business for international ships was launched in the Zhoushan area of ​​China (Zhejiang) Pilot Free-Trade Zone. 

“At that time, Zhoushan did not have an LNG bonded warehouse, and the LNG for bunkering was shipped from other regions, and the transportation cost was relatively high,” said Wang Jianhua, general manager of the Zhoushan Branch of Shenzhen CNPC International LNG Bunkering.

“Now Zhoushan has its own LNG bonded warehouse. In the future, when bunkering international ships with LNG, we can directly pick up gas from the warehouse ‘at our doorstep’, which improves the bunkering efficiency while reducing the operating costs of enterprises.”

The establishment of this LNG bonded warehouse is expected to attract more companies to carry out diversified LNG business in Zhoushan and enrich the port functions of Zhoushan. 

“More convenient access to LNG resources and fewer logistics links can attract more international ships to gather here, which will further accelerate the pace of building Zhoushan’s global bonded ship fuel refuelling center,” said a spokesperson of the Zhoushan Customs Bonded Supervision Section under Hangzhou Customs. 

To ensure the smooth implementation of LNG bonded warehouses, Hangzhou Customs proactively takes into consideration the needs of enterprises, provides “one-to-one” policy consultation during the establishment of bonded warehouses, and guides enterprises on-site to complete the construction of hardware supervision facilities and information systems. 

The customs provides “one-stop” administrative approval services, guiding enterprises to prepare bonded storage tank establishment application materials in advance to ensure that the warehouse establishment approval and acceptance are passed as soon as possible. 

Hangzhou Customs said it will further leverage Zhoushan’s policy and location advantages, strive for the implementation of policies that benefit enterprises such as biofuel processing and blending, and “supply first, declare later” for bonded ship goods and support Zhoushan in building a global bonded bunkering centre.

Photo credit: Hangzhou Customs
Published: 10 April, 2025