China's petrochemical equipment industry fueled by stimulus plan and speedy recovery

Under China's petrochemical stimulus plan, China aims to boost its annual crude oil processing, fuel output and ethylene output to 405 million tons per annum (tpa), 247.5 million tpa and 15.5 million tpa by end of 2011. And with the ongoing recovery of the petrochemical industry, China's petrochemical equipment industry is expected to achieve 15% growth this year, according to the China Petroleum and Petrochemical Equipment Industry Association (CPEIA). The country has also hastened the construction of new refineries and pipelines, and expanded oil and gas development.

The petrochemical equipment industry has been hard hit by the financial crisis. However, encouraging figures from January to November of 2009 showed the industry has improved performance. Statistics from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) indicated major petrochemical equipment enterprises realized RMB186.8 billion (US$27.4 billion) of industrial output in January to November 2009, up 12.2% from the same period in 2008. The growth rate was 39% lower from the same period of 2008.