OIL NEWS * China - The diesel drain

 ... Is not the only one complaining about the country's diesel shortage ...

Kunming,Yunnan Province,China -Global Times, by Li Woke -November 19 2010: ... The shortage, which began in September, has made "sold out" signs a common sight at many gas stations and has paralyzed traffic on key expressways with trucks waiting in long lines to fill their fuel tanks... Experts blame the shortage partly on the "power blackout policy" adopted by some local governments to meet their emission-reduction goals. The central government has pledged to cut the amount of fuel used per unit of GDP by 20 percent from 2005 levels before the end of this year... Data released by the Petroleum Flow Committee under the China General Chamber of Commerce last week showed that more than 2,000 private gas stations in southern and eastern China, mostly in Guangdong, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang provinces, have closed due to the shortage... In order to alleviate the shortage, the country's largest oil refiners, Sinopec and PetroChina, recently announced plans to process 583,000 million tons of crude per day this month. They plan to avoid maintenance shutdowns at refineries and to also import 200,000 million tons of diesel for the domestic market. Some oil refineries have also cut their output of gasoline and industrial chemicals to make room for additional diesel refining... (Photo: IC - Drivers stand in line with fuel containers waiting for diesel at a gas station in Xi'an, northwest China's Shaanxi Province)