Top Asian refiner, Sinopec, is to invest 53bn yuan by 2015 in Xinjiang to boost capacity and ramp up production.
China Petrochemical Corp (Sinopec) will make the investment over the next three years to boost refinery capacity and increase oil and gas production in the resource-rich Xinjiang region. The state-owned giant will finance a massive upgrade of its Tahe refinery, situated in the northwestern Kuqa county, to 10 million tons-per-year, or 200,000 barrels-per-day.
In 2011, Tahe processed 4.25 million tons of crude and other feedstocks, with total sales of oil products reaching 4.1 million tons. The improvements should boost crude oil production to between nine and 11 million tons, as well as raising natural gas output to 1.8-3.0 billion cubic metres annually.
The Tahe refinery is Sinopec's only refinery in the troubled province. Rival PetroChina's three refineries at Dushanzi (200,000 bpd Urumqi (100,000bpd) and Karamay (120,000 bpd) already dominate oil and gas production in Xinjiang, however Sinopec hope that the new investments will make them more competitive in the region.
China is working hard to increase its domestic refining capacity to the proposed target of 700 million metric tons per year by 2015, which is a 21% increase on this year's projected total of 578 million metric tons.