Earlier this month, it also started construction of its first liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal in Dalian, a port city in Liaoning province.

The project, with a total investment of more than 10 billion yuan, consists of a wharf, a receiving facility and transportation pipelines. It is designed to receive supplies from Qatar, Australia and other overseas markets.

A new LNG receiving facility in Rudong county, Jiangsu province, is also being built.

This year, the operation of four refineries, each with a processing capacity of 10 million tons or more, is expected to greatly boost the growth of CNPC. The four refineries are located in Dalian, Fushun, Dushanzi and Guangxi. The first three are being expanded and the last is a under construction.

The company last year processed 121.73 million tons of crude oil, up 5.1 percent over a year earlier.

Similarly, CNPC increased its crude production by 1 million tons and natural gas output by 10 billion cu m last year.

The company in February also started the construction of the second west-to-east natural gas pipeline, which will mainly carry natural gas from Turkmenistan and the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region to the Yangtze and Pearl River deltas, the country's two most developed regions.

(China Daily April 30, 2008)