(Yicai Global) July 1 -- Chinese state oil and gas giant China Petroleum & Chemical, also known as Sinopec, has built the country's first three-way pumping station that can put gasoline and hydrogen into vehicles and recharge their batteries at the same time.

Located in the city of Foshan in southern Guangdong province, the station can pump 500 kilograms of hydrogen a day, mainly for buses and courier fleets, online media outlet The Paper reported. Refueling takes just four minutes and the buses can run for 300 kilometers. The report did not provide details on gasoline refueling and the battery charging capacity.

As China's largest provincial-level refined oil seller, Sinopec's Guangdong branch has more than 2,000 pumping stations in the province and provides land for the firm to build hydrogen fueling facilities. According to the company's plan, it will build three more oil and hydrogen fueling stations in Guangdong this year.

Its chemical business also provides raw materials for hydrogen fueling. Sinopec produces two to three million tons of hydrogen each year, the cost of which will be reduced to CNY20 (USD2.90) to CNY30 per ton, Tong Dejian, general manager of Sinopec's Beijing branch, said last October.

Foshan is a pilot city for hydrogen energy development in Guangdong. The local government plans to build 57 hydrogen pumping stations by 2030 in order to become the first city in the province to widely use hydrogen-powered buses.