Guangdong Province to Invest $43.5 Billion in Refining and Ethylene Production

---

Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--The government of southern China's Guangdong Province has announced plans to invest $43.5 billion in the next five to seven years to increase its refining capacity. The projects will include refineries and ethylene-production plants.

The projects include:

•China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) (Beijing) increasing the capacity of the Dayawan petrochemical base to 400 million tons per year
•Increasing the capacity of the Maoming petrochemical base to 200 million tons per year
•Increasing the refining capacity of the Zhanjiang petrochemical base to about 4.29 million barrels per day (BBL/d)
•Building about 3.21 million BBL/d of refining capacity at the Yamenkou petrochemical base
•China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation (NYSE:SNP) (Sinopec) (Beijing) building a 150 million-ton-per-year China-Kuwait integrated refining-chemical project
•Adding about 2 million tons per year of ethylene production

The CNOOC and Sinopec projects have begun construction and the others are awaiting approval from the National Development and Reform Commission. Experts said that if the plans follow through, the annual growth of production will be about 13%. If production outpaces demand, the surplus of refined oil products could be sold to other provinces.

Environmental impact and investments could also add pressure to the projects. Plans for the China-Kuwait project are being improved to reduce environmental impacts, and China's government has begun to tighten its control on the economy.

Industrial Info Resources (IIR) is a marketing information service specializing in industrial process, energy and financial related markets with products and services ranging from industry news, analytics, forecasting, plant and project databases, as well as multimedia services.