Breathing space
It would be good news indeed if a new oil refinery and petrochemical plant planned for Nansha in Guangdong is resited. That would make cleaning up air pollution in the heart of the Pearl River Delta (PRD) an easier prospect.
The proposed US$5 billion project is a joint venture between Sinopec and the Kuwait Petroleum Corporation. In view of Guangdong's rapid development, more refinery capacity will certainly help its manufacturing sector to source better quality petroleum products locally. However, environmental officials in Guangdong were always concerned about locating a big polluter at Nansha because emissions in the PRD are already very high. Putting yet another large emitter there, even one using state-of-the-art technology, will only make cleaning up a lot more difficult.
Nansha is right in the central part of the PRD, which has a particular airflow pattern that hinders the dispersion of airborne pollutants. With the PRD already home to a great many industries, emissions have reached very high levels. Consequently, the heart of the delta is not a good place to locate potentially polluting heavy industries such as petrochemical plants.
What the region needs, instead, is a massive clean-up and the relocation of dirtier industries. This had begun to happen in recent years under Guangdong Communist Party Secretary Wang Yang. The provincial authorities began to relocate offending plants and close down the worst polluters. Allowing the Nansha refinery to go ahead would be bucking this trend.
On March 21, the South China Morning Post reported that environmental officials from Hong Kong and Macau had deep reservations about the location of the project and sought more information. A Sinopec source involved in the project said it was 'highly likely' that the plant would be located elsewhere - possibly at Zhanjiang, in western Guangdong - although there has been no final word on it. Speaking from the perspective of civil society, it would definitely be useful to examine the environmental impact assessment reports and the additional pollution load expected to be generated.
It needs to be emphasised that the project is not being abandoned, merely relocated. The western part of Guangdong has one major advantage, according to meteorologists: there is a natural airstream flowing through that area that would take pollution out to sea, away from heavily populated areas. Nansha's major disadvantage is precisely the opposite. The meteorology tends to trap emissions in the area. Zhang Tianxiang, an adviser to the Guangdong government, essentially agrees with our local scientists.