BEIJING, May 19 (UPI) -- China's efforts to stimulate and restructure its petrochemical industry will result in more crude oil refining capacity, officials say.
The country's Cabinet said Tuesday it would boost oil refining capacity to 405 million tons by 2011, an 18.4 percent increase over last year's volume, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
Four new refineries are on the drawing boards in the Yangtze and Pearl River deltas in eastern and southern China, with each plant to be capable of processing 20 million tons of oil each year, the General Office of the State Council said Monday on its Web site.
At same time, the Chinese Cabinet has instructed that oil refiners to cut pollutants, with the industry's energy intensity set be reduced by more than 12 percent by 2011. The Cabinet has also called for a greater than 6 percent reduction in the refining industry's wastewater and sulfur dioxide discharges, Xinhua said.
