China Petroleum & Chemical Corp. (SNP), or Sinopec, secured the central government's approval to double its Maoming refinery's capacity to 502,000 barrels per day, said a refinery official Wednesday.

Once completed, the refinery in southern China will become the country's third plant capable of processing more than 400,000 barrels of crude per day. The other two are Dalian in the north and Zhenhai in the east.

"We've just got the approval and will unlikely complete the expansion before 2010," the official told Dow Jones Newswires, when asked if the expansion will be completed within the earlier expected time of 2009.

The expanded facilities will process high-sulfur crude, he said. Maoming's existing facilities also mainly process sour crude from Saudi Arabia and Iran.

The new plant will have five main facilities - a 241,000 barrel-per-day vacuum distillation unit, a 48,200 barrel-per-day hydrocracking unit, a 36,100 barrel-per-day hydrocracking unit to process wax oil, a 100,000 ton-per-year sulfur recovery unit, and a 400,000 ton-per-year aromatics extraction unit, the Nanfang Daily reported, citing the refinery's general manager Li Anxi.

Renya Peng contributed to this story.

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