China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC), PetroChina's parent, said Monday it has suffered about 1.78 billion yuan ($254.9 million) of direct economic losses from the Sichuan earthquake last week.

CNPC said in a statement on its website that 908 PetroChina gas stations were partially damaged during the earthquake, and 65 of them halted operations.

Its oil and gas fields, refining plants and oil pipeline in Sichuan, Shaanxi and Gansu provinces and in Chongqing municipality have also been affected, according to the statement.

Five employees of CNPC were killed and 44 others injured. Ten others remain missing or out of contact with the company.

An 8.0-magnitude earthquake that rocked Wenchuan County, 159 kilometers northwest of the Sichuan provincial capital of Chengdu, on May 12 had claimed 34,073 lives and injured 245,108 as of noon on Monday.

To ensure oil supply to the quake-hit regions, CNPC has dispatched 16 tank trucks and 5 mobile fuel tankers to Wenchuan and made an emergency move to allocate 100,000 tons of refined oil to Sichuan via railway, expressway and waterway from Northeast and East China.

CNPC also said yesterday its daily gas output has reached 99 percent of its full capacity in quake-hit Sichuan province, which accounts for nearly one-fourth of its total all across the country.

Initial estimates for earthquake damage showed that 14,207 industrial enterprises suffered direct economic losses of 67 billion yuan in the calamity, said Vice Minister of Industry and Information Technology Xi Guohua at a press conference on Monday.

(Chinadaily.com.cn May 20, 2008)