Nearly 30 tons of crude oil leaked onto cropland in east China's Shandong Province early Tuesday morning, polluting about 0.5 hectares and cutting off oil transfer for 10 hours.

Preliminary investigations cited oil theft as responsible for the leakage, which lasted more than three hours. The seepage was detected by nearby villagers in Qiandai Village, Qufu City, at 4:20 AM on Tuesday. Although the damaged Luning oil pipeline was ordered to stop oil transferring immediately, the spillage increased at 4:40 AM.

A repair team along with police and fire brigade rushed to the site and sealed the pipe at 2:00 PM.

Oil transfer resumed Tuesday afternoon. Further investigation is still underway.

(China.org.cn by Huang Shan, August 2, 2007)