PetroChina delays refinery, petchem unit to end ‘08

BEIJING, Jan 3 (Reuters) – PetroChina will defer the start-up of a new 100,000 barrels per day (bpd) refinery in China’s remote northwest by almost a year to late 2008 due to building problems, two company sources said on Thursday.

The delay means the world’s second-largest oil consumer will have to depend on new refining capacity being added on the east coast to feed its growing demand for fuel this year, even as global oil prices hover near $100 a barrel.


“It is hugely difficult to build a new refinery out of the Gobi Desert. We have pushed it back by about a year,” a company source told Reuters by telephone from Dushanzi city in Xinjiang region, near the Kazakhstan border.

PetroChina now aims to start operating the new refinery in the fourth quarter of this year from an original schedule of early 2008, a second company official said.

Reuters