Oil company executive latest to be investigated for graft

Wang Yongchun, a deputy general manager of China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), is being investigated for "gross violation of party discipline", Xinhua reported yesterday citing the Central Discipline Inspection Commission, the Communist Party's top graft-busting body.

The investigation targeting Wang, 53, who is also the general manager of Daqing Oilfield Company, is the latest of a slew of scandals to dog CNPC, the country's largest oil and gas company.

The brief Xinhua report gave no details of the allegations against Wang. CNPC has yet to comment on the investigation of him for violating party discipline, usually a euphemism for corruption, but he was still ranked the number three deputy general manager on the firm's website.

Wang spent nearly three decades in CNPC subsidiaries in the northeast before he was made one of the company's deputy general managers in April 2011. In November 2012 he was elected an alternate member of the party's Central Committee.

CNPC was once a power base for Zhou Yongkang , a former member of the Standing Committee of the party's Politburo. The 71-year old Zhou, a party hardliner, rose through the ranks of the petroleum industry before becoming party secretary and general manager of CNPC in 1996. He retired last year.

Several of Zhou's subordinates and former aides have been implicated in corruption or placed under Communist Party disciplinary investigation in Sichuan , another of Zhou's power bases.