China’s third-largest oil company begins construction on 60,000 bpd refinery in Taizhou city, Jiangsu province.
China National Offshore Oil Corp (CNOOC) has invested CNY 10.2 billion ($1.6 billion) in the new facility, slated to begin operation in 2015, which will include 10 main processing facilities on top of an existing fuel oil and asphalt plant. The state-owned oil company has called the plant an “integrated petrochemical project” instead of “refinery”, and sees the facility becoming a key lubricants producer in China.
As well as optimising the company’s nascent refining and fuel marketing business in the world’s second largest market, the new facility will also produce feedstock oil for petrochemicals, liquefied petroleum gas and fuel oil.
The state-owned giant already operates a 240,000 barrels-per-day (bpd) capacity refinery in Huizhou, Guangdong province, which it has earmarked for a 200,000 bpd expansion by 2014. Even with the new expansion, however, the plant would comprise less than 4% of the nation’s total refining capacity of some 11 million bpd.