Thursday, August 29, 2013

China halts environmental approvals for oil giants

China's environment ministry has suspended approvals of new projects by the country's two biggest oil firms for failing to achieve pollution reduction goals, it said Thursday.
The ministry said it had temporarily halted approval of new refining projects, and renovation or expansion of existing facilities, for China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) and China Petroleum and Chemical Corp (Sinopec).
CNPC failed to meet the target for reducing chemical oxygen demand -- a measure of the amount of pollution in water -- for last year, the ministry said in a statement.
Separately, it said Sinopec failed to achieve the required cut in its emissions of nitrogen oxide, an air pollutant.
It was not clear how the environment ministry, which is considered weak by many analysts, would enforce the ruling.
The ministry declined to comment further. A Sinopec spokesman said in a statement that the company would "obey" the ministry, while CNPC could not be reached.

http://www.france24.com/en/20130829-china-halts-environmental-approvals-oil-giants 

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