Baby Oil, the newest Expo mascot on the block

The Expo mascots keep on coming, with Haibao leading the pack of course. Now Shanghai’s loveable blue version of Gumby has a new friend with fewer odor issues than Durian Boy: the Oil Pavilion’s Baby Oil (Youbaobao).

The World Expo blog write: “With a quiff of golden hair not unlike Haibaos’, Baby Oil will be welcoming people to the Oil Pavilion on the Puxi side of World Expo 2010 Shanghai.”

Jointly sponsored by PetroChina, Sinopec, and China National Offshore Oil Corp., Baby Oil will welcome visitors to the 3,600-square-meter Oil Pavilion.

Although we’re a bit confused about how the Oil Pavilion fits into the overarching green theme of the Shanghai 2010 Expo, Xinhua explains that the pavilion’s them is “Oil -- extending city dreams" and it will illustrate to visitors “the contributions that petroleum has made to urban development.”