(Platts, Sept 29, 2006)SingaporeSinopec's newly-built 8-million mt/year (160,000 b/d) Hainan refinery started loading first gasoline export cargo on Friday, an official with the refinery told Platts. The 10,000 mt, 92 RON gasoline cargo will be exported to Vietnam, where state-owned Sinopec -- through its trading subsidiary Unipec -- has term export agreements with a few Vietnamese importers. Located in the Chinese southern island province of Hainan's Yangpu Economic Development Zone, the Sinopec Hainan Petrochemical Co has already obtained the export license for its oil products, the refinery official added. And gasoline exports from the Hainan plant are set to rise slightly from next month, with Unipec offering a spot medium range cargo of around 30,000 mt of 92 or 93 RON grade, early this week. Higher export volumes of up to 60,000 mt each month may only start early next year as refinery operations are not fully stable yet, a source close to the company had said earlier in the week. Still, the majority of oil products output from the Hainan refinery will be supplied into South China, which is one of the country's key demand centers. Sinopec had started LPG sales from the refinery early this month, using LPG produced from trials. The LPG barge Sushun, which left the refinery's port September 5 was bought by Guangzhou Zhenrong Gas Co, a subsidiary of China SHV Gas in south China's Pearl River Delta. According to the refinery's environment impact assessment supplement, the refinery has a designed annual production capacity of 482,800 mt of LPG, 200,000 mt of jet fuel, 3.86 million mt of gasoil, 138,900 mt of fuel oil and 2.44 million mt of 93, 95 and 97 RON gasoline which meets Euro III emissions standards. The Hainan refinery complex has 15 refining and petrochemical plants, including a 8 million mt/year crude distillation unit with 2.5 million/year vacuum distillation capacity, 2.8 million mt/year heavy oil catalytic cracker, 1.2 million mt/year continuous reformer, 2 million mt/year gasoil hydrogenation unit, 300,000 mt/year jet fuel hydrogenation unit, 60,000 mt/year gas fractionation unit, as well as facilities producing isomers, polypropylene, and MTBE. --Irene Tang,