KUALA LUMPUR - Iran is in discussions to store strategic oil in China and to build refineries around Asia, Oil Minister Kazem Vaziri-Hamaneh said on Monday, as it seeks secure outlets for its crude in the face of Western economic sanctions.

He said there is no shortage of crude in the market and the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries has no plans to increase supplies, in the latest producers' rebuff to consumer nation calls for more oil.

Vaziri-Hamaneh said the world's fourth-largest oil exporter is in discussions to store strategic crude in the world's second-largest oil consumer China, which has been been building up reserves in the past year.

"We have some plans... we have discussed with them to have a role in storing strategic reserves in China," he told reporters on the sidelines of the Asia Oil and Gas Conference in the Malaysian capital.

China has completed filling its first 33 million-barrel Zhenhai facility and had been scheduled to make the first crude fill into its second strategic storage facility at Aoshan by end-May, part of its aim of a 100 million-barrel pad by end-2008.

The crude came from countries such as as Angola, Iran and Sudan, shipping sources had said.

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