PETROCHINA Co, the nation's second-largest oil refiner, has started construction of an 8.2 billion-yuan (US$1.2 billion) oil refinery in western Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region to tap rising demand.

The refinery will process 5 million metric tons of crude a year into products including 1.7 million tons of gasoline, 2.38 million tons of diesel and 210,000 tons of liquefied petroleum gas, parent China National Petroleum Corp said yesterday. The state oil refiner will also build a 5 million-ton-a-year crude distillation unit and a 2.6 million-ton-a-year catalytic cracker.