By Zheng Lifei (China Daily)
Updated: 2006-12-28 09:37

SHANGHAI: Shanghai Petroleum Exchange, the country's first bourse for oil products, will start trading three new petrochemicals next month, as the young bourse quickens its pace to offer more products.

An employee of the Shanghai Petroleum Exchange watches her computer monitor. [Bloomberg News]

The exchange, which was reopened in August, plans to introduce toluene, xylene and styrene next month - a move that would bring the number of products it trades to four.

"We have initially set the trading date on January 18, but this depends on market conditions," Zhang Jianquan, head of the bourse's research department, said yesterday.

Toluene is a solvent and is also widely used as an industrial feedstock. Styrene is used primarily in the synthetic rubber industry and as a building block for polymers in making products such as plastics and resins. Xylene is a solvent widely used to produce products such as paints and coatings, as well as petrol and insecticides.

The petroleum exchange, of which China's three oil giants PetroChina,Sinopecand CNOOC are investors, is planning to introduce more oil products in the coming months, Zhang said.

   1 2   

   1 2