South China’s Guangdong Province is scheduled to increase annual oil refining capacity by near 80-mil mt before 2015, according to C1’s survey.

Guangdong provincial government announced recently that it planned to invest a total Yuan 267-bil to build new or expand existing petrochemical projects in next seven years.

As items of the “Advanced Manufacturing Project” listed in layout of the “Ten New Projects of Guangdong”, the related oil refining projects include: 40-mil-mt/yr expansion project of Daya Bay petrochemical base, or CNOOC’s Huizhou refinery, up from 12-mil mt per year; 20-mil-mt/yr expansion project of Sinopec Maoming Petrochemical, up from 13.5-mil mt per year; 20-mil-mt/yr capacity expansion project of Sinopec Dongxing Refinery, up from 5-mil mt per year; 15-mil-mt/yr oil refining project of Yamenkou petrochemical base; Sino-Kuwait 15-mil-mt/yr oil refining project in Nansha. Meanwhile, the province will also add 3-mil mt per year of ethylene production capacity in total, consisting of Dongxing Refinery’s 2-mil-mt capacity expansion project, up from 1-mil mt per year, 1-mil-mil/yr ethylene project affiliated to Sino-Kuwait refinery, and 1-mil-mil/yr ethylene project for Yamenkou petrochemical base.

The refining capacity expansion will mark a year-on-year of 13% on average, which would significantly exceed increase of oil products demand in Guangdong, refinery sources denoted, expecting Guangdong may become a major crude processor and refined oil supplier in China if all of the projects were complete.

However, most of the refining projects are pending approvals form the National Development & Reform Commission now, except the Daya Bay expansion project and Sino-Kuwait refinery, some other refinery sources pointed out. Besides, booming construction costs and the government’s fiscal restraint policy made it more risky for operating large investment projects at present, the sources added.