PetroChina Co, the nation's biggest oil company, will increase processing at its Daqing oil refinery by 3 percent this year to 6 million tons.

The plant refined 5.8 million tons of crude last year, Yang Jigang, general manager of PetroChina Daqing Petrochemical Co, told reporters at a meeting of the National People's Congress over the weekend.

The Daqing plant aims to double ethylene capacity to 1.2 million tons at a cost of about 14 billion yuan by 2012, Yang said. Expansion work started early this year, he added.

PetroChina Daqing plans to shut a 1.2-million-ton-a-year heavy-oil catalytic cracker in May or June, Yang told Bloomberg News.

(Shanghai Daily March 9, 2009)