"A lot of them (independent refineries) are expanding or renovating their residue fluid catalytic crackers and delayed cokers, in a way to increase refined oil products like gasoil and gasoline's output and raise their refining efficiency."
Privately-run refineries in east China's Shandong province will increase their total nameplate straight-run fuel oil refining capacity by some 10 million mt/year to 50 million mt/year (1.15 million b/d) by the end of next year, industry sources who had just visited most of the area's refineries told Platts Tuesday.

"We had a very good discussion about it, I am not going into the specifics of it except to say that they acknowledged that this issue must be resolved to mutual satisfaction."
Nuclear-armed North Korea has agreed to address questions over its controversial highly enriched uranium program that triggered a nearly five-year atomic standoff with Washington, US envoy Christopher Hill said Monday in Washington on his return from a surprise visit to Pyongyang.

Updated: June 26, 2007