Oil giants fail environmental tests

Govt delays approval of CNPC, Sinopec new projects till '13 emissions evaluation

The country's two major oil providers - China National Petroleum Corp and China Petroleum and Chemical Corp - have been punished by the Environmental Protection Ministry for failing their 2012 environmental tests.

The evaluation, released on Thursday, was based on four indicators: chemical oxygen demand, which shows the concentration of organic matter in the water; ammonia nitrogen, a major cause of excessive nutrients in water; and the airborne pollutants sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide.