Sinopec to Increase Capacity More Than 250,000 Barrels per Day

---

Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation (NYSE:SNP) (Sinopec) expects the company's crude oil refining capacity to increase between 12 million and 15 million metric tons per year in the next three years, according to Sinopec President Tianpu Wang.

In a speech on November 3, Wang said, "In 2010, Sinopec plans to process 205 million metric tons of crude oil, or about 4.4 million barrels per day." He also mentioned that Sinopec would purchase more than 1 million barrels per day (BBL/d) of crude oil from Saudi Arabian Oil Company (Saudi Aramco) (Dhahran, Saudi Arabia) next year.

Another Saudi Arabian company, Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC) (Riyadh, Saudi Arabia), will supply 210,000 BBL/d to Sinopec's Tianjin Refinery, which is currently under expansion, according to Wang, who did not elaborate on when the expansion would be complete.

On the same day, Sinopec also announced that its 1 million-metric-ton ethylene joint venture project with SABIC was put into operation in Tianjin. As reported, the $2.7 billion joint venture project in Tianjin was initially to be built by Sinopec alone. Because of lack of crude oil resources and to better cope with the challenge of low-cost ethylene produced from the Middle East region entering the Chinese market, Sinopec sold 50% of its equity in the Tianjin ethylene project to set up the joint venture with SABIC just prior to the commissioning of the project.

Sinopec is the largest oil refiner in China and one of the top-three oil refiners in the world. In 2008, Sinopec's crude oil refining capacity surpassed 4 million barrels per day, and the actual crude oil refining volume 3.6 million BBL/d. In the first three quarters of 2009, Sinopec processed 3.8 million BBL/d, an increase of 3% year over year.

Industrial Info Resources (IIR) is the leading provider of global market intelligence specializing in the industrial process, heavy manufacturing and energy related markets. For more than 26 years, Industrial Info has provided plant and project opportunity databases, market forecasts, high resolution maps, and daily industry news.