They may face the same high oil prices and ongoing energy security concerns but China and the United States have taken different approaches to the development of their national strategic oil reserves.
Both are leaders in global crude oil consumption growth and it is the differences in their geology, economic and political history that have triggered these divergences in problem-solving.
The US, being the world's top oil-consuming nation with daily consumption of 20 million barrels, has seen its reliance on foreign oil double to 60 per cent of consumption from 1974 to today. This ratio was forecast to rise to 70 per cent in a few years, US Energy association executive director Barry Worthington told an energy conference in Beijing.
China, an emerging economic superpower, has also experienced a rapid increase in import dependency since it became a net oil importer in 1993. Just 11 years later, it had to import 40 per cent of its crude oil consumption.
Jessica Gao Anrong, a researcher at Sinopec Consulting, a unit of the country's second-largest oil producer China Petroleum & Chemical (Sinopec), said the ratio was projected to rise to 56 per cent by 2020.
The US jump-started its strategic oil reserve build-up programme in 1974 during an oil crisis, with former president Ford signing the Emergency Petroleum Conservation Act that authorised the accumulation of up to one billion barrels of oil reserves.