In recent times, the incident of “edible oil being transported in oil tankers” in mainland China has sparked public outrage. Insiders in the industry have disclosed related details, stating that the issue of “mixing oil tankers for transportation” involves various economic factors.
According to a report by the “Xinjingbao” on July 2, two tankers that had just unloaded coal-based oil were not cleaned before being loaded with edible soybean oil and driven out of the factory area. The report mentioned that many general-purpose tankers transport liquids that are not fixed, handling edible liquids such as syrup, soybean oil, as well as transporting coal-based oil and other dangerous chemicals.
The report implicates a large number of state-owned enterprises and private enterprises, including leading Chinese grain and oil companies such as Huifuren Oil Group, Xi’anyang factory under Jinlongyu, Jingliang Holdings, Xiwang Food, and Tianjin Company under China Grain Reserves.
According to a report by “Time Weekly” on the 9th, Xu Dong (alias), the owner of a freight company in Henan, manages a total of 60 vehicles, including hazardous goods tankers and general tankers, covering a wide range of routes. When he read the news mentioned above, he remarked that “edible oil should not be loaded in tankers meant for hazardous goods, this is illegal and is similar to poisoning.”
However, Xu Dong also admitted that although similar situations had not occurred in his own company, he was aware of peers who engaged in such practices. He mentioned that since the middle of 2022, there has been an influx of personnel in the tanker transportation industry. Subsequently, the industry gradually saturated and entered a price war.
In order to compete for customers, tanker companies engaged in fierce competition among themselves. Some operators in the industry transported ordinary goods using general tankers as hazardous tankers to secure more profits, while some hazardous tankers operated in reverse, transporting ordinary goods to capture market share.
Additionally, buyer enterprises pressured for lower prices. According to industry norms, the transportation cost by hazardous tankers is 30%-40% higher than general tankers for the same distance. For instance, a transportation fee that used to be 2000 yuan per trip could be negotiated down to 1500-1800 yuan by the buyer enterprise.
As the profit margins of transportation companies declined, the earnings of transportation drivers were also squeezed. Cleaning the tanker body alone costs at least 500-800 yuan, and if the buyer enterprise does not control this cost, drivers might try to save this expense.
Xu Dong believes that the emergence of the issue of “mixing oil tankers for transportation” is due to a vicious cycle in the industry and conflicts of interest.
An unnamed transportation enterprise owner from Xingtai expressed that with intensifying competition, survival has become challenging for the 5,000-6,000 transportation companies in Xingtai (including individual operators). He mentioned that transportation companies have been struggling in the past two years, and in order to save costs, drivers resort to taking provincial roads to avoid highway tolls and mixing tankers.
Currently, the “incident of coal oil tankers transporting edible oil” is still unfolding. An article published by NetEase on July 9 commented that the severity of this incident is no less than the melamine-tainted milk powder incident (Sanlu tainted milk incident).
Associate Professor Zhu Yi from the College of Food Science at China Agricultural University, in an interview with China News Health, mentioned that coal-based oil mainly consists of hydrocarbons, including unsaturated alkanes, aromatic hydrocarbons, sulfides, which could affect human health and potentially lead to poisoning.
On the internet, the Chinese Communist Party uses its online army to divert attention, labeling the “Xinjingbao” that exposed this incident as “foreign forces” with “ulterior motives”.
Regarding this, some netizens commented, “Some people always try to shift blame by attributing issues to ‘foreign hostile forces’. In reality, they are just trying to divert attention and place blame on others.”
The chaotic practice of mixing oil tankers for transportation is not a recent phenomenon. As early as 2005, the “Nanguo Zhaobao” reported on the chaotic situation of tankers being difficult to clean and prone to cross-contamination, where they transported dangerous chemicals followed by food products.
By 2015, Hunan TV Urban Channel had previously exposed the insider information where trucks transporting toxic chemicals illegally loaded edible oil.
China has repeatedly faced food safety issues, not limited to the transportation of mixed oil tankers. Around 2005, the “China Quality Report” released an article called “Behind the ‘Gutter Oil'”, mentioning the unregulated flow of “gutter oil” which was transported daily in large quantities from hidden sites in neighboring provinces and cities to Nanhe County, Xingtai City in Hebei Province.
In 2008, China faced the melamine-tainted milk incident, where many infants consuming Sanlu Group milk powder were found to have kidney stones. Subsequently, chemical substances like melamine and melamine acid were found in their milk powder, with nearly 300,000 affected infants reported officially. Xi Jinping expressed concerns about food safety events potentially escalating into mass incidents during a meeting in 2013, highlighting that ensuring food safety is crucial for the ruling Communist Party in China.