China on Thursday announced new guidelines on foreign participation in industrial projects, under which Beijing will tighten restrictions on oil refinery projects while encouraging foreign investments in the development of unconventional resources.
The country's top economic planning agency, the National Development and Reform Commission, issued the new guidelines in a statement published on its website.
The new rules on foreign investments are in line with the NDRC guidelines issued in April this year of a comprehensive list of industries that the government is encouraging, restricting and phasing out.
Under the new guidelines, fresh foreign investment in the refining sector are allowed only for projects with crude distillation capacities of above 10 million mt/year (200,822 b/d), catalytic crackers and hydrocrackers of over 1.5 million mt/year in capacity, or reformers of above 1 million mt/year.
The previous guidelines, issued late 2007, restricts foreign investment in refinery projects with CDU capacity of under 8 million mt/year (160,658 b/d).
The new guidelines also outlines sectors that the government is encouraging foreign companies to invest in, which include exploration and development of unconventional resources like shale gas and deep-sea gas hydrates, via joint ventures or cooperation with Chinese companies.
The new guidelines take effect on January 30, 2012.
In April, Beijing said it plans to close refineries with crude distillation units of under 2 million mt/year (40,164 b/d) by end 2013 as part of its plan to phase out polluting industries.
The NDRC had said then that building of new refineries with crude throughput of less than 10 million mt/year (200,822 b/d), catalytic crackers and hydrocrackers of under 1.5 million mt/year capacity, reformers of less than 1 million mt/year in capacity, and steam crackers of under 800,000 mt/year capacity would be restricted.
