China plans to invest three billion yuan (US$361 million) in air pollution control in Daqing, home to the country's largest oilfield, in the next 10 years.

City officials say that the money will be mainly used for 16 major projects covering prevention of industrial pollution, control of low-level air pollution, and air pollution control in urban areas. When completed, these projects are expected to greatly reduce the discharge of petrochemical pollutants, sulphur dioxide, smoke and dust into the air.

The Daqing Oilfield, in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, has produced in total over 1.6 billion tons of crude oil in the past four decades or so, with its annual oil output exceeding 50 million tons for 26 consecutive years.

To clean its air, Daqing will strive to promote scientific and technological development, readjust its industrial structure, discard equipment which produces more pollutants and develop and encourage the use of clean fuels like geothermal resources, electricity and solar energy.

The city expects to see a 20 percent drop in sulphur dioxide, smoke and dust in the air by the year 2010 and more clean days all year around.

(ChinaEnvironment.com July 2, 2002)