PetroChina's new Dushanzi plant to run at 70 pct in Sept

BEIJING, Aug 28 - PetroChina <0857.HK> is test-running its new 200,000 barrel-per-day refinery in northwest Xinjiang region that is designed to process Kazakh crude, and will run it at 70 percent in September, a plant manager said on Friday.

The PetroChina plant is the third major oil processor China started up this year, after CNOOC's 240,000-bpd plant in southern Guangdong and Sinopec Corp's <0386.HK> 160,000-bpd refinery in Fujian, which together helped fuel the country's record crude imports.

(For a table of Asia's refinery construction plans, click [ID:nHKG237883])

"It's now under trial operations. By end of this month we shall have started up all the facilities," said a plant manager based in Dushanzi city, adding that the test runs started early this month.

The refinery had originally slated for start-up in early 2008, but was pushed back several times due to problems such as delays in the delivery of key equipment and extreme weather conditions in the area that prohibits work for months in a year.

The manager, who is not authorized to speak to the media and declined to be named, said technically the new plant can push up to full operations in the fourth quarter, but actual operation will depend on the domestic fuel demand.

The new facility is designed to process Kazakh crude pumped via a Kazakh-China pipeline.

Once the new plant enters normal operation, PetroChina will switch off an existing 110,000-bpd crude unit at the same site, displacing some local Xinjiang crude oil to other domestic refineries in the region.