China to tighten refinery approvals

The Chinese government has announced that it will strictly control the approval of new refining and ethylene projects, to prevent overcapacity in the sector and to try to help companies speed up the construction of existing projects. As demand in the fuel sector has slowed down due to the global economic crisis, regions in China that are planning large new refineries have to first shut down small, inefficient plants. The National Administration of Energy has said that China aims to expand refining capacity to 440 million tons a year, or 8.8 million barrels per day, by 2011. As such, it will encourage oil firms to build new refinery bases in Sichuan, Guangzhou, Quangzhou and Shanghai in the next three years. It also advised oil firms to expand capacity at existing plants in Zhenhai and Maoming, while joint venture refineries will be set up to process crude oil imported from Venezuela, Qatar and Russia. (March 9, 2009)