China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) is planning to set up an industrial park of 200,000 square meters in Dubai’s “Free Zone” as a logistics hub with production lines for engineering equipment to supply the company’s needs in the Middle East and North Africa. CNPC will use the park as an equipment store in the event of an emergency withdrawal from the Middle East and North Africa. The company suffered huge losses when it was forced to withdraw from Libya in 2011. A company source said the Dubai project was among a number of solutions designed to make CNPC more nimble and flexible when pulling out from turbulent regions. The Middle East and North Africa region is China’s major oil supplier. Sinochem Group also said it would set up a logistics center in Dubai. The upheavals in the Middle East and North Africa will not stop oil companies from continuing to invest heavily in those areas, because they have no other option as they seek to supply China’s huge demand for energy, said Andrew George, Managing Director of the London-based global risk adviser Marsh’s Energy Practice. CNPC holds a 37% share in Iraq’s biggest oilfield Rumaila, which has reserves of about 17 billion barrels, and a 50% stake in the Halfaya oilfield, which has an estimated total output of 70,000 barrels a day throughout 2012. The company has four upstream projects in Sudan and also participates in Syria’s Gbeiba oilfield. CNPC warned recently that political upheaval poses the biggest challenge for the overseas operations of Chinese oil companies, the China Daily reports.