China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC), the country's biggest oil company, will launch a safe production campaign this year in all its units both at home and abroad.

Corporate leaders announced at a Monday's meeting to make December 23 an annual "safe production caution day" while calling 2004 the "year of safe management".

CNPC's general manager Ma Fucai outlined emergency rescue planning, safety training for all employees, and the revision of production safety standards.

"We should conscientiously learn our lesson from the deadly gas blowout on December 23 last year and take a series of practical measures to achieve safe production," he said.

Safety inspection teams organized by CNPC made field trips before the meeting to over 120 domestic units under CNPC and its subsidiary PetroChina and 41 units in 14 foreign countries under CNPC.

The December 23 gas blow in southwest China's Chongqing municipality, the country's deadliest recent industrial disaster, left 243 people dead from toxic fumes as a negligent drilling crew broke open a gas well and dismantled safety equipment that might have stopped the blowout.

(Xinhua News Agency January 22, 2004)