South China's Guangdong Province aims to become a major petro-chemical refining base in Asia with the capacity to produce 25 percent of China's total required ethylene by 2020.

The Guangdong Provincial Development and Reform Commission newly promulgated a long-term development program which set the annual growth rate of the petro-chemical refining industry at above 20 percent from now to 2010.

"The output value of Guangdong's refining industry will reach 730 billion yuan (91 billion U.S. dollars) by 2010, and by 2020, the total oil refining capacity is targeted at 100 million tons, and that of ethylene is estimated at 6 million tons, one fourth of the country's total," said Li Miaojuan, deputy director of the commission.

With the current 24.9 million tons a year, Guangdong is second only to Liaoning Province in terms of petro-chemical refining capacity.

Now, local producers can only make enough ethylene to supply for 20 percent of the local market.

The commission's statistics suggest that the province's demand for refined oil will reach 23 million tons by 2010 when its production ability is estimated to be 14.7 million tons. The gap between supply and demand for fuel oil will stand at 8.15 million tons by then.

Source: Xinhua