A total of Rmb83.1bn will be invested in nine petrochemical projects in Jiangsu over the next three years, according to a statement by the provincial government.

CNOOC Ltd, an arm of China’s largest offshore oil company China National Offshore Oil Corp, plans to launch a refining project this year with a potential annual output value of Rmb15bn. It will be located in Taizhou, a city on the lower reaches of the Yangtze River. The first stage of the project will be operational in 2011.

BASF-YPC, a large-scale petrochemical joint venture in Nanjing between BASF and Sinopec, will expand its second-stage ethylene project to meet market demand.

Jiangsu Chengxing Phosph-Chemical, located in Jiangyin city on the southern bank of the Yangtze downstream of Taizhou, currently specialises in making phosphoric acid, phosphate products and yellow phosphorus. It now plans to set up a terephthalic acid (PTA) plant with estimated annual output of 600,000 tons. The new project will be completed in March 2010.

Another petrochemical company, based in Xuzhou, in the northwest of Jiangsu, will start a methyl alcohol project with predicted yield of 1.5m tons a year.