Oil refining capacity to grow steadily through 2015

China’s refining capacity will expand steadily over the next four years in anticipation of increased demand for oil products from the world’s largest automobile market. The country’s consumption of oil products such as gasoline, diesel fuel and kerosene, surged from 168.59 million tons in 2005 to 245.15 million tons in 2010. Beijing is confident that growth will continue at this pace. According to the 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-2015) for the oil and petrochemical industry released by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), consumption is expected to grow at an annual rate of 5.5 percent and reach 320 million tons by 2015. To meet demand, China aims to expand refining capacity by 190 million tons to approximately 650 million tons up tp 2015, the China Petroleum and Chemical Industry Federation said. The ever increasing number of automobiles on China’s roads is a primary growth driver for the industry. Automobiles currently use one-third of China’s oil products. More than 36 million new vehicles have been purchased in China in the past two years. According to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), China had 105.78 million automobiles as of the end of last year. capacity requirement of six million tons on refineries. State-owned oil majors China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC) and China Petroleum Chemical Corp. (Sinopec) currently dominate more than 80% of the country’s refining capacity. Their refineries each had an average capacity of 6.8 million tons last year. (February 24, 2012)