Who will pay for cleaner gas?
0 Comment(s)
Print
E-mail Xinhua, February 5, 2013
"There is little technological difficulty in upgrading petrol quality," said Lin Boqiang, an energy expert at Xiamen University.
What matters is fuel prices, he said.
However, Sinopec will see losses related to petrol quality upgrades if there are no preferential government policies, according to Fu.
He said large refineries suffered losses last year, while outdated smaller ones made money because they didn't need to produce high-quality petrol.
According to figures from chem99.com, an oil industry web portal, making upgrades to meet the national 4 standard will cost Sinopec, CNPC and CNOOC, China's largest three fuel providers, 50 billion yuan.
Sinopec and CNPC raked in more than 120 billion yuan in net profits in the first three quarters of 2012. CNOOC did not release their figures.
Dong Xiucheng, an energy expert at the China University of Petroleum, said the government may reduce refineries' costs by cutting taxes.
The government said in a guideline on environmental protection issued in 2011 that it would roll out favorable policies to help refineries that produce cleaner petrol.
An expert who participated in the formulation of the guideline said the government will likely issue specific policies in 2013 to encourage fuel quality upgrades.
The government should levy lower taxes on high-quality fuel and in this way phase out low-quality fuel, said the expert, who declined to be named.
"The government, enterprises and consumers should all bear one-third of the rise in costs," he said.
Go to Forum >>0 Comment(s)