China Petrochemical Corp., known as Sinopec Group, is spending around 30 billion yuan ($4.8 billion) a year to improve the quality of its oil products, state television reported citing the group's chairman.

The group is upgrading desulfurization facilities at its 12 refineries, and these facilities will have returned to operation by the end of the year, China Central Television reported late Friday, citing Chairman Fu Chengyu.

All of Sinopec's oil products will meet the National 4 standard for pollutant emission by 2014, CCTV said. At present, just some of its refineries are capable of making such products.

Sinopec spent an average CNY20 billion annually on upgrading facilities to improve fuel quality over the past 10 years, CCTV reported.

Only a handful of cities such as Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Guangdong enforce the National 4 standard, which requires sulfur content in fuel oil to be less than 50 parts per million.

In Beijing , the Beijing 5 standard requires sulfur content of less than 10 ppm.

Other provinces and cities adopt the National 3 standard which allows sulphur content as high as 150 ppm.

By comparison, the maximum sulphur content in the European Union, for instance, is 10 ppm.

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