The country's largest single polypropylene project, the Daqing Refining Company, with an annual refining capacity of 300,000 tons, has begun operations in Daqing, in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province.

According to sources with the company, a subsidiary of Daqing Oilfield Company, the project, which took 17 months and 1.23 billion yuan (US$148 million) to complete, is one of the five projects aimed at reinvigorating old industrial bases in the northeast.

The project will produce 103 varieties of chemical products for use in various sectors including automobile, chemical fiber, household electrical appliances and rolled plastic materials.

The plant is projected to reap annual sales income of 2 billion yuan (US$240 million) and after-tax profits of 300 million yuan (US$36 million).

(Xinhua News Agency August 15, 2005)