Gasgoo Munich- Sinochem Oil Marketing and Contemporary Amperex Energy Service Technology Ltd. ("CAES") — a wholly owned subsidiary of CATL — have signed a strategic cooperation agreement to jointly develop and operate charging and battery-swapping stations. Sinochem Oil Marketing will contribute sites, government and corporate coordination, and customer resources, while CAES handles station construction, battery equipment installation and maintenance, and market operations.
The partnership embeds battery swapping into existing fuel and charging networks, leveraging legacy assets to underpin green energy-infrastructure development. It marks a concrete step by both sides to advance China's "dual carbon" goals, revitalize existing assets, and accelerate the green transition.
Image Source: Choco Swap
Sinochem Oil Marketing operates nearly 2,000 gas stations across 26 provinces and municipalities. This extensive fuel and charging network gives battery swapping a ready-made platform, turning swapping stations into functional extensions of existing sites. Traditional energy stations, then, needn't rely solely on capital-intensive greenfield projects — they can layer new capabilities onto legacy networks, lowering barriers to entry while boosting resource efficiency.
Under this model, select stations will be upgraded into integrated hubs combining battery swaps and ultra-fast charging. Given the same land and power capacity, a single parking slot at an integrated hub delivers three times the service throughput of a standalone charging station. That significantly raises energy-service density per unit of land and power, making the transition of legacy assets more economically viable.
Battery swapping delivers value beyond energy replenishment. CATL's Choco Swap stations, acting as distributed energy-storage units, can participate in peak shaving, valley filling, and green-power absorption. Gas stations, in turn, evolve from single-product fuel outlets into comprehensive energy hubs offering both recharging and storage capabilities.
Next, Sinochem Oil Marketing will accelerate its battery-swapping rollout, using its legacy network as a fulcrum to integrate swapping into the public charging infrastructure — supporting the optimization and development of China's energy structure.
