State oil firms must declare number of small refineries

China has ordered its state-owned oil companies to disclose the number of small and medium-sized refineries with an annual capacity of less than 5 million metric tons or 100,000 barrels a day around the country, as part of an overhaul of the country’s refining sector. The survey will cover refineries, asphalt plants, lubricant plants and other petrochemical units. It is part of a restructuring of the sector and on-going work to improve fuel quality, China’s economic planning agency said in a statement on its Web site. China Petrochemical Corp., or Sinopec Group, and China National Petroleum Corp. together control around 90% of the country’s refining capacity. The survey will cover not only the total processing capacity of each plant, but also plant configuration and the problems being faced by these small plants. (September 11, 2007)