China's second largest state-owned refining group PetroChina plans to commission its Anning refinery in the Yunnan province (southern China) in October 2016.
The 260,000 bbl/d (13 Mt/year) refinery project has been delayed several times due to tightened environmental regulations forcing PetroChina to change and resubmit the project and due to delays in the approval of the export pipeline to Myanmar. The project will be the first major refinery to be commissioned in China in nearly two years, in a context of falling oil prices failing to attract investors in oil projects. Saudi oil company Saudi Aramco could take a stake in the project and supply part of crude oil inputs. The refinery is designed to process high sulphur crude oil.
In the first five months of 2016, crude imports into China soared by 16% compared to the same period of 2015, thanks to the opening of oil imports to private companies and to low oil prices boosting stockpiles.
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