CHINA Petroleum & Chemical Corp, the nation's largest oil refiner, started constructing an ethylene plant costing 14.7 billion yuan (US$2 billion) to tap rising demand for the chemical.

The project in Wuhan city will help meet demand in central China, parent China Petrochemical Corp said in its online newsletter Sinopecnews yesterday.

China plans to more than triple its annual ethylene producing capacity to 18.13 million metric tons by 2010. Sinopec, as China Petroleum is known, signed an initial accord with SK Corp to jointly build the project, Shu Chaoxia, deputy chief engineer of China Petrochemical's economic and technical research institute, said in June.