The multinational oil giant BP officially launches a plan to add 1,000 new gas stations in China

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The multinational oil giant BP has officially launched a plan to add 1,000 new gas stations in China. Published by the China Petroleum News Center on February 1, 2019, at 10:15. It is reported that the new BP gas station located in Huaiyin District, Jinan, is the first BP-operated station in China to offer fast charging services for electric vehicles. By participating in the BP Target Neutral program, it has become a gas station that operates in a “carbon-neutral” manner. 　　Headquartered in London, UK, BP’s main business activities in China include oil and gas exploration and development, production and sales of petrochemical products, retail of refined oil products, lubricant business, advanced mobility services, and venture capital investment. BP’s retail petroleum products business in China was previously concentrated in Guangdong Province and Zhejiang Province. In the aforementioned provinces, the company operates over 740 dual-brand gas stations in joint ventures with China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) and Sinopec Corporation. 　　Among them, CNPC BHP Petroleum Co., Ltd., a joint venture established in 2001 by BP and CNPC, is the largest Sino-foreign cooperative project in the retail of refined petroleum products, approved for operation by the **Ministry of Commerce. 　　Building on its experience in the East and South China regions, BP’s refined oil retail business expanded northward to Shandong, a major province for refined oil consumption. 　　In 2018, BP and Shandong Dongming Petrochemical Group (hereinafter referred to as Dongming Petrochemical) established a joint venture (with each party holding 49% and 51% of the shares respectively) to jointly develop the retail market for refined oil products in the provinces of Shandong, Henan, and Hebei. The plan is to expand the network of gas stations operated by this joint venture to 500 outlets within 10 years. Dongming Petrochemical is the largest local private oil refining enterprise in China, with a refining capacity of 15 million tons per year; it operates a refinery with a capacity of 12 million tons per year in Dongming County, Shandong Province. In addition, Dongming Petrochemical already has a well-established refined oil sales network in the provinces of Shandong, Hebei, and Henan. 　　Including the 500 gas stations built in partnership with Dongming Petrochemical, BP announced last year that it would add 1,000 more gas stations in China over the next five years. 　　"The Chinese market is crucial to BP’s strategy for developing its downstream business. The new gas stations will be the first BP outlets to offer comprehensive services, reflecting our firm commitment to continuing to provide customers with charging solutions, fuel, as well as high-quality products and services,” said Feng Fan, CEO of BP’s downstream business. 　　Foreign oil and gas giants are accelerating their entry into China’s refined oil retail market. In addition to BP, Shell plans to nearly triple the number of gas stations it operates in China by 2025, rising from the current level of around 1,300. 　　In June 2018, the **National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Commerce issued the \"Special Administrative Measures for Foreign Investment Access (Negative List) (2018 Edition)\", which removed the restrictions on the number and shareholding ratios regarding the construction and operation of foreign-owned gas stations. This change means that in the future, international oil companies will no longer face any limits when opening gas stations in China, and the Chinese gas station market is likely to enter a new era characterized by fierce competition among many players. 　　Previously, if foreign companies wanted to enter China’s gas station market, they could only do so by forming joint ventures with Chinese companies, with the latter holding control of the venture. For consumers, the entry of foreign-owned gas stations into the domestic market may bring a wider range of services. For multinational giants, foreign-funded companies, backed by brand premiums, management expertise, and financial resources, have great potential to benefit from market integration through flexible win-win cooperation models. 　　In addition to BP’s high-quality fuel and convenient services, the new station located in Shandong will also offer customers freshly brewed WildBean brand coffee, which is delivered to their cars, along with free wireless internet access in the store. All purchases can be included in the multi-partner loyalty points program offered in partnership between BP and China Resources Tong, a program that currently covers over 6,000 merchants across the country.