China plans to increase its refinery capacity by 31.6 per cent and more than double its ethylene production by the year 2010, the country's top economic policy planner said yesterday.

The country aims to advance production efficiency within the two industries, secure domestic supply and improve producing facility allocation across China, according to the medium-term and long-term refining and ethylene industrial blueprint published by the National Development and Reform Commission yesterday (NDRC).

"We will build a crude oil processing base in South China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region refine imported oil, and another base in Southwest China's Sichuan Province for oil from the country's domestic fields," the economic planning body said in the statement.

The two oil refining bases aim to address the country's imbalanced allocation of its oil processing facilities, which are too concentrated in the northeastern and northwestern regions, it said.

By the year 2010, China plans to add new refining facilities of at least 90 million tons, and meanwhile, to close small and inefficient plants totalling about 20 million tons in capacity to enhance efficiency, it added. The country last year processed 285 million tons of crude oil into oil products such as gasoline and diesel.

For ethylene, the NDRC said the country would build three ethylene production areas in China, which will sit in the Yangtze River Delta, the Bohai Rim and the Pearl River Delta. The areas are expected to account for 60 per cent of the country's total ethylene production capacity.

By 2010, it plans to increase the country's ethylene production capacity by as much as 10.58 million tons, compared with last year's production of 7.55 million tons.

(China Daily 03/17/2006 page9)