Rationing has been imposed on petrol and diesel in Guangzhou, which is suffering a shortage.

Taxi drivers wait outside a gas station in Guangzhou yesterday to get fuel. (Net) 

The capital of South China's Guangdong Province has a reported monthly shortfall of about 50,000 tons of refined oil, Xie Zhaowei, secretary of Guangzhou Petrol Industry Association, said yesterday.

Xie added that the shortage has begun to affect people's lives.

Several other cities in the Pearl River Delta region, one of the nation's most dynamic economic powerhouses, have begun suffering from short supply. Dongguan is reported to need 10,000 additional tons each month.

But in Shanghai, the situation is not so grave.

"Our supply of refined oil can meet the demand in Shanghai," said a spokesman from the East China Marketing Department of the China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation. He would not elaborate regarding the available supply.

Skyrocketing prices of crude have produced a shortage in China, and now domestic refineries are reluctant to increase business, Han Xuegong, senior analyst for China National Petroleum Corp, said on the sidelines of a petrochemical industry summit yesterday.

Other problems, Han said, include China's large consumption of energy, a result of its fast-growing economy, and the rising demand for refined oil from the domestic market.

"Asia's largest oil refiner Sinopec relies on imports for much of its crude for refining, so the surging crude prices on the world market have greatly hurt the oil giant's refining business when the central government still controls the price of domestic refined oil to stabilize the market," Han said.

Furthermore, China is a large energy consumer, Han said.

That fact, combined with increased domestic demand from a rising number of private car users, has caused the shortage of refined oil, he added.

Editor: Yan