PetroChina Lanzhou aims to double crude capacity-media

PetroChina's largest in western China, hopes to double its crude processing capacity to 400,000 barrels per day (bpd) in the five years between 2011 to 2015, a business paper said on Wednesday.

"We are planning to expand our refining scale, as China's western regions need a plant with annual processing capacity above 20 million tonnes (or 400,000 bpd)," Xuan Changwei, general manager of Lanzhou Petrochemical Corp, was quoted as saying by the 21st Century Business Herald.

The expansion plan is awaiting approval from the headquarters of PetroChina Corp Ltd, the report said.

The paper did not say how much the investment for expansion would be.

Large refinery projects also require approval from the National Development and Reform Commission, China's top economic planning ministry.

Lanzhou's operating income is expected to reach 60 billion yuan ($8.78 billion) in 2008, and its chemical business earned 1.7 billion yuan profit from January to November, the paper said.

The report did not disclose the amount of its operating losses from its refining unit.

Soaring crude oil costs and low state-set fuel prices forced state-run oil giants PetroChina and Sinopec to suffer refining losses of 180.4 billion yuan ($26.4 billion) from January to October.
($1=6.837 Yuan)