Current Status of the Oil Refining Industry in China and Prospects for Cooperative Development

The oil refining industry in China supports the needs of national economic development and has gone through industrial upgrading at all stages, as represented by the upgrades in the quality of refined oil products.Currently, it has acquired strong technical and engineering strength and delivered good results in scale, information technology and environmental friendliness. However, compared with the world’s leading oil refining powers, the oil refining industry in China still lags behind in terms of overall competitiveness. There is an urgent need to enhance its competitiveness and adjust its product structure, plant structure and capacity structure to both launch a new round of industrial upgrading and coordinate with the associated industries. Great potential exists for China to cooperate with the countries along the Belt and Road initiative in various fields such as petroleum resources, product markets and technical equipment. Together, multi-dimensional cooperation bonded by resources, markets, technologies and capital/funds can be carried out, and cooperation between the upstream and downstream industries throughout the industry chain can be facilitated. There is much to expect from the prospects for cooperative development.