PetroChina launches store on Alibaba’s Tmall as China’s energy giants follow Premier Li’s ‘internet-plus’ policy

State-owned PetroChina launched a store for one of its provincial operations on Alibaba’s Tmall, the e-commerce giant's business-to-consumer platform, on Tuesday as the cooperation between internet giants and energy industries in China continues.

Online shoppers can now buy discounted fuel cards for use at 550 petrol stations in central China’s Hunan province. They can also find the best time to refuel by checking real-time traffic reports on Tmall, China's biggest oil producer said.

PetroChina is something of a late entrant to China’s digital parallel universe, with rival oil refiner Sinopec launching a webite selling fuel cards online back in February 2014.

The oil and gas company's reluctance to set up shop online was explained earlier this year by insiders who claimed it did not want to share its valuable “big data” on sales volume, customer information and oil prices with future e-commerce partners, the Beijing Times reported.

Yet no major corporation can fight the tide for long in China. With Premier Li Keqiang putting forward his much-vaunted “internet plus” strategy this year, the oil giant had little choice but to come on board and join the push for better integration of internet technology and traditional manufacturing.

PetroChina also announced a strategic cooperation in June with Chinese internet giant Tencent, which runs WeChat and QQ, the most popular mobile chatting tools on the mainland.