China CNOOC Huizhou Oil Refining Phase II project delayed commencement

CNOOC's Huizhou oil refining project Phase two is expected to start in May 2010, according to a circular announced recently on the official website by China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC).　　This is in contrast to the company's schedule, which shows that under the impact of the financial crisis, the domestic large-scale refining project is delaying the construction progress.　　As the first large-scale oil refining project of CNOOC, Huizhou oil Refining project Phase One project was successfully put into operation on April 29 this year, ending the history of CNOOC's "mining without smelting". The two phase of the project was scheduled to start this year, but CNOOC's announcement started in May 2010, indicating that its construction schedule has been postponed. CNOOC did not disclose the exact date of commencement, it also did not explain the reasons for delaying the commencement of work, but announced that Guangdong Province and Huizhou had formally expanded the CNOOC's 28 square kilometer petrochemical industry in Daya Bay to 65 square kilometres, including the current one-stage land, the upcoming two-year land,　　Area of 10 square kilometers of three period of land use, the middle and downstream project land, fine chemical plants, deepwater operating base. "It's a normal thing because the market capacity is shrinking and there is no demand."　　Dong Xiucheng, deputy Dean of the College of Business Administration, China Petroleum University, said in an interview with our correspondent. This has become another example of the delayed commencement of refinery projects under the impact of the financial crisis. Earlier, Liu Dechu, president of the Chinese group, said that the production date of the first phase of the Quanzhou refinery has been postponed from 2010 to the beginning of 2011. Zhang Dafu, Sinopec's Jinling Petrochemical chairman, also said in public that the company would postpone a 48%-year plan to expand its refining capacity by increasing liquidity and uncertainty over the demand for refined products.