BEIJING, Dec 14 - Sinopec Corp started up a crude oil pipeline that connects a major northern China terminal with two inland refineries, adding the final link to a massive pipeline network aimed at cutting processing cost, its in-house paper said.
The 82-kilometre line, which was started earlier this month from Tianjin port to Cangzhou in Hebei province, will give two Sinopec plants -- Cangzhou and Shijiang -- in Hebei direct access to imported crude, China Petrochemical News reported on Monday.
Sinopec put into operation two 300,000-tonnage crude terminals each in Tianjin and the nearby Caofeidian region in 2008.
This new link adds to a sprawling pipeline network the top Asian refiner has been building over the last decade or so that links almost all of its processors including the top coastal plants and those along the Yangtze river.
The whole network has a total pipeline length of more than 3,000 kilometres, the paper said.
The refiner, operating a total of about 4 million barrels per day of crude run capacity, secures over 70 percent of its crude needs from international markets.
