Factbox: Dalian port closure delays crude imports, mogas exports

BEIJING (Reuters) - China closed the Dalian Xingang oil port, home to the country's largest oil reserve bases and a major source of crude oil imports to PetroChina's northeastern refineries, after crude pipeline explosions spilled oil into the sea.

The closure is expected to delay crude oil imports as well as exports of gasoline and diesel.

Dalian port has also shut 80-90 percent of its berths, including for iron ore and grain imports, after explosions at oil pipelines at its Xingang port spilled oil to the sea.

The port is the largest general-use facility in northeast China and the nation's second-largest container transshipment hub.

The port consists of seven areas -- Daliangang, Dalianwan, Xianglujiao, Nianyuwan, Ganjinzi, Heizuizi, Si'ergou and Dayaowan.

WHAT

Hundreds of firefighters battled for more than 15 hours to extinguish the blaze that started late on Friday when a pipe transporting crude oil from a ship to a storage tank blew up, causing a second pipeline nearby to explode.

WHERE

The Xingang port in northeast Liaoning province is capable of handling more than 57 million metric tons of oil a year and is also home to one of the country's first government-held emergency crude stockpiles and a larger commercial crude reserve base built by PetroChina.

Dalian has 3 million cubic meters of government oil storage and a bigger commercial facility, the size of which is not clear.

IMPACT

OIL

PetroChina, which operates two major refineries in Dalian, has set up a contingency plan to cope with the one-week closure.

It has started trimming refinery operations at one of the plants, the 200,000 barrel-per-day (bpd) West Pacific PetroChemical Corp (WEPEC), by about "several thousand (metric) tons" per day.

The company also operates its largest Dalian refinery with a capacity of 410,000 bpd.

Xingang port has four jetties and the fire damaged the pipelines and a storage tank, trade sources said.

While there are small jetties at the Dalian refinery for vessels to discharge crude, there are no alternatives at WEPEC, they said.

An extended shutdown of the port facilities is likely to cause both refineries to reduce operating rates, the sources said.

The port took in 1.9 million metric tons of crude oil of the total imports of 17.8 million metric tons in May and handled 30 percent of China's gasoline exports.

IRON ORE AND COAL

Dalian handled 3.2 million metric tons of China's 52 million metric tons of iron ore imports in May.

It also landed almost 600,000 metric tons of China's 11 million metric tons of thermal coal imports and 9 percent of its coking coal imports.

SOY

In January-May period, China shipped some 1.96 million metric tons of soybeans into Dalian port, 10 percent of its total imports of 19.6 million metric tons during the period.

PORT TRAFFIC

Dalian port received 13.89 million metric tons (676,000 bpd) of foreign crude in the first five months of the year, up 87 percent on a year earlier.

The volume makes up nearly 15 percent of China's total crude imports and ranks the second largest in volumes after eastern China's Ningbo port, official customs data showed.

The customs data also include imports into smaller jetties operated by PetroChina Dalian refinery. But the breakdowns are not immediately available.

Dalian is also the largest port for gasoline exports, at more than 1 million metric tons in the same period, 200,000 metric tons or about seven mid-sized cargoes each month, the data showed.

Dalian customs authority handled 15.2 million metric tons of iron ore imports in the first five months of this year, 16 percent up from Jan-May 2009.

The Dalian port operates a 300,000 tonnage ore terminal, also in the Xingang part of the port, and berths for grain cargos of various sizes at Beiliang portion of the port.

(Reporting by Florence Tan, Chen Aizhu, Ben Blanchard, Doug Young, Nick Trevethan; Editing by Ramthan Hussain)