PetroChina to complete Yunnan refinery by 2013

CNPC, parent company of PetroChina, plans to complete building the 200,000 barrel per day (bpd) refinery in southwestern Yunnan province by 2013 to process crude sent via a Myanmar pipeline. PetroChina will also start operating a 60,000 bpd plant in northern Gansu province in October. China will likely add more than 3 million bpd of new refining capacity between 2010 and 2015, industry officials and Chinese media have said, in a new refinery-building boom to fuel its robust economic growth. The expansion pace, some half a million barrels per day on an annual average, does not look huge compared with China’s annual incremental oil demand growth, but some market analysts have argued that China may already have a structural surplus of gasoline and diesel fuel. (September 10, 2010)