China's first Sino-foreign joint-venture integrated oil processing project has gone into trial operation in Quanzhou, a coastal city in eastern China's Fujian Province, sources with the Fujian Refining and Petrochemical Co. Ltd. confirmed Saturday.

The project will jack up Fujian's annual oil refining capacity from 4 million tonnes to 12 million tonnes.

When it begins full operation in the second half of this year, the project will realize an annual output value of 50 billion yuan (7.3 billion U.S. dollars).

The project, partnership of China, the United States and Saudi Arabia, is designed to integrate oil processing and petrochemicals production with marketing of refined oil.

The project will also involve an 800,000 tonnes/year ethylene cracking facility, an 800,000-tonnes/year polyethylene device, a 400,000 tonnes/year polypropylene device and a 700,000 tonnes/year paraxylene-arene facility.

In March 2007, Sinopec, China's leading oil refining group, and the provincial government of Fujian established two joint-venture companies with Exxon Mobile from the United States and Amaraco from Saudi Arabia with a total investment of nearly 5 billion U.S. dollars.

One of the joint-venture is the Fujian Refining and Petrochemical Co. Ltd., with the Chinese side taking 50 percent of the stake, and Exxon Mobile and Amaraco sharing the remaining 50 percent equally.

The other is Sinopec SenMei (Fujian) Petroleum Co. Ltd., with the Chinese side taking 55 percent of the stake, and Exxon Mobile and Amaraco sharing the rest 45 percent equally.

According to Lin Boqiang, head of China research center of energy economy under the Xiamen University in the province, given the insufficiency of oil supplies at home, it was an important strategy for China to attract oil producing nations to invest directly in China's oil refining and petrochemical sector.

Lin said that the strategy could help make best use of China's huge oil market, advanced technologies from Exxon Mobile and abundant oil resources from Saudi Arabia.

As for oil producing countries, the policy would give them access to China's enormous oil market and hence help them lessen their reliance on western oil markets, Lin noted. For China, the policy would be conducive to helping it obtain stable oil supplies in a long run, Lin added.

(Xinhua News Agency May 30, 2009)