New regulations issued “recently” aimed to standardise the process of military fuel management in areas such as procurement, transport, storage and disposal, the official PLA Daily said on Tuesday.

The rules were also designed to introduce strict controls and joint military-civilian oversight to prevent misuse and to ensure operational readiness.

“Recent wars around the world clearly show that the victorious side has consistently excelled in integrating support plans with operational plans to ensure a high degree of coordination between support and combat operations,” a separate PLA Daily commentary said.

In recent years, the PLA has stepped up efforts to improve its fuel supply chain to ensure supplies go where they are needed, adopting automated technology to monitor the condition of its supplies.

The Chinese military has also carried out regular training exercises to improve its supply operations and introduced data-driven intelligent management systems.

The United States military is also working on improving its fuel supply chain by moving away from reliance on fixed fuel depots in favour of highly mobile logistics support units and increasing the use of automation to reduce human error.