China Petroleum & Chemical Corp's Jinling refinery in Jiangsu province started a new 8-million-metric-ton a year crude distillation unit in late April, according to a refinery official.

The plant will also launch a 3.5-million-ton a year catalytic unit in October, said the official, who declined to be identified because he is not authorized to talk about it.

The refinery's annual crude-processing capacity has risen to 18 million tons from 13.5 million before the crude distillation unit became operational, the official said.