NANJING, July 17 (Xinhua) -- Construction on a large petrochemical storage wharf kicked off Wednesday in Xuwei area of the Lianyungang port, east China's Jiangsu Province.

With a total investment of 2.68 billion yuan (about 389.8 million U.S. dollars), the project is expected to be fully operational in 2021.

The new wharf will have a 300,000-tonne crude oil berth with an annual throughput capacity of 17.4 million tonnes, four 50,000-tonne liquid bulk berths with an annual throughput capacity of 9.3 million tonnes, and supporting facilities.

The project will make storage and transportation more convenient and reduce logistics cost by seamlessly connecting process units with the wharf and tanks through pipe galleries, said Miao Hangen, chairman of the Chinese conglomerate Shenghong Group.

It is expected to be a key transport channel for crude oil and petrochemical products of Shenghong's refining and chemical integration project and the Lianyungang petrochemical industrial base, Miao added.

As one of the first batch of 14 Chinese coastal cities that piloted opening-up, Lianyungang is now one of the country's major petrochemical industrial bases which aims to create a large-scale refining and chemical integration base of new materials and fine chemistry.