Chinese petroleum and petrochemical companies to further accelerate

02-Mar-10

Taking into account the requirement for developing low-carbon economy, Chinese petroleum and petrochemical industry will further accelerate readjusting the industrial structure, and put more efforts to economize energy, reduce emissions, and integrate oil refining and ethylene facilities on a larger scale this year. This will lead to faster development of China's ethylene industry in 2010. China is expected to increase its ethylene capacity by 2.5 mln tons, augmenting its existing total capacity to over 15 mln tpa. This will give an impetus to the development of downstream derivatives and three major synthetic materials industries, abating the dependence on import. China's petroleum and petrochemical industry has stepped out of the trough and is regaining growth in the first year of a new decade. China's oil demand will increase faster amid better domestic economy in 2010, leading to a heavier dependence rate on import, predicted Zhu He, of Sinopec's Economics and Development Research Institute. He predicts, China’s apparent oil consumption is estimated to increase 5% yoy to 427 mln tons in 2010, while its crude oil output will likely increase slightly from a year earlier to 193 mln tons, with the growth rate smaller than demand growth. He predicted that China's dependence on foreign crude oil would increase in 2010, and its net imports of crude oil would exceed 210 mln tons this year. China's oil refining capacity is expected to keep rising rapidly in 2010. Zhu predicted that China would increase its refining capacity by 31 mln tons in 2010, adding the total annual capacity to 510 mln tons. The country is estimated to process 400 mln tons of crude oil in 2010, up over 5% yoy.