PetroChina to build largest oil plant in China

China's largest oil company, PetroChina, has been approved to spend US$3.3bn to expand a major northwest petrochemical facility that will pump in oil from neighboring Kazakhstan, state media reported. Under the plan, PetroChina would nearly double crude processing capacity at its factory in the western Xinjiang Region to 10 million tonnes a year by 2008. The expansion would make the plant China's largest crude processing facility, with most of the crude oil pumped through a 1,200-km pipeline running from Kazakhstan. The pipeline is part of the pact between China and Kazakhstan to build a 3,000 km oil pipeline from Kazakhastan to the Xinjiang province.