Plans for an oil refinery in Kunming are now being made public, with construction set to begin in October. The refinery will be located in Anning, about 30 kilometers west of downtown Kunming, and is expected to be operational by 2012.

Last week Anning vice mayor Yin Jiaping (尹家屏) told local media that China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) would begin acquiring land from Anning farmers in September before formally breaking ground on the refinery in October.

The announcement comes two and a half years after CNPC signed an agreement with the Yunnan government authorizing construction of the refinery, which with a refining capacity of 200,000 barrels per day will be medium-sized by global standards.

Yin said the 23 billion yuan (US$3.4 billion) refinery would not adversely impact the livelihood of Anning residents, but it is still unclear how the local community will receive the refinery. In 2008 around 200 people in Chengdu protested the planned construction of a petrochemical complex on that city's outskirts.

Yin added that the Anning government would conduct monthly checks on the water quality of four segments of the Tanglang River (螳螂川), which flows out of Dianchi Lake and northward through Anning before eventually feeding the upper reaches of the Yangtze River.

The planned refinery will process Middle Eastern and African crude unloaded from tankers near Kyaukphyu in western Myanmar. The oil will flow through a 2,380-kilometer pipeline—construction of which is also soon to begin—across Myanmar and through Ruili on its way to Anning.

In addition to the Yunnan market, much of the Anning refinery's output will continue onward to the southwest Chinese cities of Chongqing and Nanning.

The Kunming refinery and pipeline through Myanmar are important components of China's strategy to bolster its energy security by minimizing its reliance upon oil imports shipped through the narrow and US-controlled Strait of Malacca. At present, China imports crude via two overland pipelines, one from Kazakhstan and the other from Russia, in addition to tankers traveling the Strait of Malacca.

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