CNOOC promises 500m yuan for relief

China National Offshore Oil Corp (CNOOC), the country's largest offshore oil producer, plans to donate 500 million yuan over five years for post-quake reconstruction.

At 100 million yuan each year, CNOOC's money will mostly be spent on public services facilities such as schools and hospitals, the company said in a statement yesterday.

Large State-owned companies should pay more attention to their corporate social responsibility work in hard times such as these and the company has already donated over 30 million yuan since the earthquake, said the statement.

The deadly quake has not affected any CNOOC facility, a company source told China Daily yesterday.

CNOOC, China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) and China Petrochemical Corp (Sinopec) are the country's three leading oil producers. CNPC and Sinopec have both chipped in for the relief work as well.

Within a day of the quake, CNPC said it would allocate 100,000 tons of refined oil in emergency aid. By yesterday, the company had sent 83,300 tons of refined oil to the affected regions, said its website.

CNPC has ordered some refineries to increase their production. Its Lanzhou refinery has boosted production by 10 percent.

Sinopec, the nation's largest oil refiner, has diverted supplies of gasoline and diesel from central and southern regions to the quake-stricken Sichuan province. The company has so far sent 63,500 tons of emergency fuel supplies to Sichuan and Chongqing, its website said.

Both CNPC and Sinopec have no major oil refineries or chemical projects in the regions most seriously affected by the quake. Sinopec said the quake's impact was marginal on its wells and refineries in northeast Sichuan.

Puguang natural gas field, the company's largest in northeast Sichuan, did not sustain any major damage.

CNPC yesterday said its natural gas production in Sichuan returned to 99 percent of the volume before the quake. By Sunday, all filling stations under the company in the quake-hit regions had returned to normal operation.

(China Daily 05/21/2008 page20)