<Here is news update from Beijing News on China Monopoly Law challenge – at least it is a start (similar to Mexico’s new Reform Bill) for the independents & privatization efforts. Nothing like Crisis to bring on fit of common sense but it is hard to believe the government is going to end up spanking itself since it owns the refineries…..CER comments>
China’s Struggling “teapots” to sue state oil majors
October 13, 2008
The country’s independent oil firms and small private refiners (also known as teapots) plan to sue Sinopec and PetroChina under a new anti-monopoly law, according to the Beijing News. About two thirds of China’s 663 independent fuel wholesalers have gone bankrupt, and one third of the country’s 45,064 independent service stations have been forced to close, since Sinopec and PetroChina sell refined fuels at their own outlets at artificially-low prices. At the same time the state companies sell product to their smaller competitors at illegally-high prices, noted Ahao Youshan, president of the China Fuel Distribution Assoc. Amid recent fuel shortages, the government had ordered the two state firms to provide more fuel to the independents at farier prices to improve competition, but Sinopec and PetroChina reportedly did not comply, Zhao
said. The new anti-monopoly law went into effect in August 2008, and is Communist China’s first detailed legal restriction on the abuse of market positions by large companies.
