THE government fined five oil companies including units of PetroChina Co. and China Petroleum & Chemical Corp., the country s biggest refiners, for selling diesel above State-set prices, amid a domestic shortage of the fuel.
PetroChina s Wuhan unit and the Luoyang and Wuhan subsidiaries of Sinopec, as China Petroleum is known, sold diesel at prices as much as 7 percent higher than the State-set ceiling, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) said in a statement on its Web site yesterday. The prices are illegal, according to the country s top economic planner.
China is battling a shortage of the fuel as demand from farmers increases during the autumn harvest and factories turn to their own diesel-powered generators after some local authorities shut power supplies to save energy. PetroChina and Sinopec have said they are boosting diesel output and imports to meet the higher consumption.
Mao Zefeng, spokesman of Hong Kong-listed PetroChina and Sinopec spokesman Huang Wensheng weren t immediately available to comment after business hours.
The premiums charged by the PetroChina and Sinopec units boosted their diesel sales by 260,000 yuan (US$39,128) in total, the NDRC said, without specifying the period of the sales.
The companies identified by the NDRC also include two local fuel distributors in Shandong and Jiangsu provinces.
(SD-Agencies)
