The Chinese government has approved a five-billion-dollar domestic oil refinery joint venture with Kuwait, state media said Thursday.
The project, between China's Sinopec and Kuwait Petroleum Corp., will become the biggest Sino-foreign joint venture so far in the petrochemical industry, according to the Shanghai Securities News.
The giant operation, to be located in Nansha in south China's Guangdong province, is expected to help China reduce its dependence on imported oil and chemical products.
The facility will include an oil refinery with a 15-million-ton annual capacity and a plant capable of producing one million tons of ethylene a year, the newspaper said.
Earlier reports said the ethylene facility in itself would become the largest ethylene plant in China.
Chinese demand for ethylene — a key component in the manufacturing of many plastics products — has risen dramatically in the course of its economic boom.
The country had to import 57 percent of its ethylene needs last year, up from just 22 percent in 1990, the Shanghai Daily reported.
The Sino-Kuwaiti project appears to have all the attractions that China usually looks for when approving joint ventures — money, technology and jobs.
Once the huge facility becomes operational, in 2010, it could create employment for between 800 and 1,000 Chinese, previous reports said.
