Special Report: Global Financial Crisis
BEIJING, Feb. 17 (Xinhua) -- China's upcoming stimulus package for the
petrochemical sector will likely focus on oil refining and chemical industries,
while oil and gas exploration will not be touched upon, petrochemical experts
said Tuesday.
The package will more likely dedicate to the overall development of the
sector in the next three years with emphasis on industrial restructuring and
optimization of product mix, said sources with China Petroleum and Chemical
Industry Association (CPCIA), who declined to be named.
In terms of chemical industry, the stimulus package would stress adjustment
and upgrading of industrial structure, support development of high-end chemical
products, and encourage manufacturers to make high-tech and high-value-added
products which could replace import ones, said the sources.
China's petrochemical industry has seen unbalanced development, according
CPCIA report, citing facts such as the primary chemical manufacturing saw
serious excess capacity, while high-end chemical production was relatively weak
and relied largely on imports.
China's refining industry might extend its existing projects and build new
ones, since China's current refining capacity might not be able to meet the
demand of the country's development in the long term, said Dong Xiucheng,
professor with China University of Petroleum.
The package might also include plans for establishing a reserve system for
petrochemical products, such as fertilizer reserve during agricultural off-peak
seasons and commercial reserves of refined oil, said sources with CPCIA.
China's petrochemical sector saw profit drop by 10 percent last year,
totaling 499 billion yuan (73.06 billion U.S. dollars), said the CPCIA report.
China's refining capacity reached 342 million tons last year, and will
increase 40 million tons in 2009, according to the Economic and Development
Research Institute under China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation (Sinopec),
China's largest oil refiner.
