OREANDA-NEWS. December 10, 2014. China Petroleum and Chemical Corp (Sinopec), Asia's largest refiner, will invest 28.1 billion yuan (USD4.58 billion) over three years to address safety concerns related to oil pipelines in the wake of a series of deadly explosions over the past few years, reports the China-based China Times (not our sister paper).

Sinopec unveiled the plan on the first anniversary of an explosion and fire at a pipeline in the east China port city of Qingdao which killed 62 people and left over 150 injured on Nov. 22, 2013, according to the report.

After the accident, the Work Safety Commission of the State Council launched a campaign aimed at detecting and addressing the dangers inherent in pipelines.

Sinopec said it spent 4 billion yuan (USD 652 million) in the first 10 months of this year to fix problems with its pipelines and plans to spend another 28.1 billion yuan (USD 4.6 billion) over the next three years to make sure its facilities are safe.

Sinopec also said it will invest another 12.2 billion yuan (USD 2 billion) over three years to replace pipelines built more than three decades ago and to strengthen the monitoring of pipelines built more than two decades ago.

The company stopped using two pipelines in the northern province of Hebei and neighboring Tianjin in December 2013 and August this year respectively because of corrosion problems and holes made by thieves stealing oil and gas, the report said.

After the checks were conducted, Sinopec discovered that 78% of its pipelines adjudged to have safety risks are located in the provinces of Shandong, Hebei, Henan and Guangdong.

Sinopec operates more than 30,000 kilometers of oil and gas pipelines throughout the country. The company reported it had identified a total of 5,622 problems by the end of May and had fixed 3,157 of them as of October.

Moreover, the company said it will work with the authorities to find those responsible for damaging its pipelines, particularly those involved in drilling holes to steal oil, the report said.

In related news, the Qingdao Huangdao District People's Court on Nov. 18 opened a hearing into the pipeline blast in the city last year.