OREANDA-NEWS.  July 11, 2013. The China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC), the country's largest oil producer, published an environmental impact assessment on its controversial plans to build a refining plant in Kunming, Yunnan Province.

The report released June 25 by the company said plans for an oil refinery and chemical factory in the southwestern capital carried an "acceptable" level of environmental risk. CNPC said pollution discharge from the factories would be processed according to environmental guidelines.

According to the report, the CNPC plant in Kunming would produce or refine gasoline, diesel, kerosene, liquefied natural gas, as well as polypropylene, benzene and other chemicals. The project is located 30 kilometers away from the city center of Kunming, a tourism hot spot in China.

"(The project) basically will have no impact on Kunming," said the report. The refinery is slated for completion in 2015, and it is expected to eventually supply 53 percent of the oil consumed in Yunnan.

The Yunnan provincial environmental protection bureau will oversee the project's construction and operation. CNPC said in the report that the oil refinery project has met all national environmental safety standards and would further cut emissions of sulfur dioxide and carbon dioxide. Earlier media reports said the project is expected to produce more than 2,000 tons of sulfur dioxide emission every year.

The CNPC report came after city residents took to the streets over concerns of the project's potential harms to the environment and human health. Protestors said the proposed construction of a paraxylene (PX) facility could damage the region's water resources and pose a risk to humans. PX has been found to have carcinogenic properties.

However, environmental assessment report did not mention the construction of a PX facility.

The project was approved by the  Ministry of Environmental Protection in July 2012 and the National Development and Reform Commission in January. Construction was started in April. Kunming saw two large protests in May amid public discontent over an opaque environmental assessment process. Ma Xiaojia, head of the National Energy Administration, said environmental impact assessments were confidential and would not be released to the public.

In response to public outcry, Li Wenrong, the mayor of Kunming, said on June 2 that a full environmental assessment report would be released.