CNPC gets started on new plant

China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC), the country's largest oil producer, began building an 8.2-billion-yuan refinery in the Ningxia Hui autonomous region on Sunday.

The project will have an annual refining capacity of 5 million tons. It is scheduled to come onstream at the end of 2010, CNPC said on its website.

Once in operation, the project will produce 1.73 million tons of gasoline and 2.38 million tons of diesel per year, with annual sales revenue of 15 billion yuan, it said.