CHINA Petrochemical Corp., or Sinopec Group, has built a pumping station in southern China that combines hydrogen-filling and retail sales of conventional fuels, the first of its kind in China, the oil and gas group said yesterday.

The service station in the city of Foshan in Guangdong Province has a daily hydrogen-filling capacity of 500 kilograms, Sinopec said on its website. The station is intended mainly for the service of hydrogen-powered buses and trucking fleets.

It takes four minutes to fill the hydrogen tank for a bus with enough fuel to travel 300 kilometers, according to the firm.

Foshan was picked by Guangdong as a pilot city for developing the hydrogen fuel industry, with a target to establish 57 such pumping stations in the southern province by 2030, said Sinopec.

This is part of a national plan to build 1,000 hydrogen pumping stations across the country to supply one million hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles by 2030, Sinopec said.

Sinopec Group is parent of Sinopec Corp., Asia’s largest oil refiner and retail fuel operator that has shares listed on the Shanghai and Hong Kong stock exchanges.

(SD-Agencies)