China oil giant mulls plans for national electric car battery network

China National Offshore Oil Corp (CNOOC), the country's largest offshore oil and gas producer, has revealed it is considering taking on the formidable task of building a nationwide recharging network for electric cars.

The company is looking at the possibility of setting up stations where drivers of plug-in automobiles would be able to swap out a depleted car battery for a fully recharged one, CNOOC director of corporate strategy Shan Lianwen told the Wall Street Journal yesterday.

The tentative plan resembles the business model of US-based Better Place, which is developing battery-swapping stations in Israel, Denmark and select cities in Canada, the US and Australia.

Electric vehicles would need to gain greater popularity in China before the battery-swap network could be put in place, said Shan, adding that the company thought petrol prices would need to rise about 20 per cent to eight yuan (US$1.17) a litre before consumers would turn to the zero-emission cars in bigger numbers.

But any shift towards electric cars would diminish the firm's traditional revenue stream and, as a result, it is increasingly keen to diversify into electric cars. For example, earlier this year CNOOC invested US$732m in Chinese lithium-ion car battery manufacturer Tianjin Lishen Battery Joint-Stock Co, with the capital earmarked for the construction of 20 battery assembly lines at a new facility in the Chinese city of Tianjin.

CNOOC is also planning to curb its carbon intensity through the construction of three synthetic natural gas plants at a cost of US$11.7bn. The facilities, which would employ coal gasification technology, are to be located in Shanxi province and the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

The syngas plants have received approval from local governments and are awaiting authorisation at a national level, Shan told state-run Xinhua news agency.

CNOOC is examining ways to take carbon dioxide produced from the process – which coverts coal into gas – and sequestering it underground, he added.