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China is pledging greater effort to enhance the safety of the way its liquefied gas is transported on the way to replacing Japan as the world's second largest oil importer in the coming year, the Ministry of Communications estimates.

Specifically, the country will train more safety professionals, build more quick-reaction centres along its coast and establish a compensation fund for oil pollution damage, Hong Shanxiang, vice-minister of communications, told the Shanghai International Maritime Forum yesterday.

Statistics indicate China imported 80 million tons of oil last year, but will see imported liquefied natural gas imports reach 15 million tons this year. Petroleum gas will reach 170 million tons by 2010, most of which will reach China by sea.

For most Chinese seaside people, oil spills used to be far away from reality, but on August 5, when a ship crashed into an anchored oiler in Huangpu River and caused a spill of 85 tons of oil, putting 70 per cent of Shanghai's drinking water under threat, the issue received a surge of attention.

"Along with more liquefied gas transported to Chinese harbours in the future, the possibility of oil spills is going to increase,'' said Liu Gongchen, executive vice-director of the Marine Safety Administration in China.

Although China's capacity to ensure the safety of gas carriers and to cope with oil spills has improved since the late-1990s, Liu frankly admitted that China has not yet effectively managed to handle oil spills of more than 50,000 tons.

According to Liu, China has averaged nearly 700 ship accidents every year since the mid-1990s, of which less than 20 were with gas carriers. The seven major oil spill accidents since 1995 have cost the country over 10 million yuan (US$1.2 million) in direct losses.

Among the measures by the ministry, the compensation fund for pollution damages has received the most attention.

The fund aims to ensure enough money is available to clear up spills,which, in most cases, are too huge a burden for any individual company. According to the statistics of the UK P&I Club, the largest ship insurer in the world and the sponsor of the forum, when tankers spill oil, average clean up and compensation costs can amount to US$2.3 million.

If this fund existed, Shanghai might not have found itself with no one to turn to for compensation, Liu said.

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