An executive of the refinery is interviewed by journalists.

The Atyrau Oil Refinery in Kazakhstan, once on the verge of closure, is under a full test run and its oil production rises by times after being upgraded by a Chinese enterprise, CCTV.com reported on Oct. 9.

The refinery, one of the largest in Kazakhstan, was built in 1945 and is designed to produce 4.9 million tons of oil a year. But it has been on the verge of closure for a long time due to backward technology and equipment.

Since 2009, China’s Sinopec Engineering (Group) Co., Ltd. has invested a total of $2.7 billion in the upgrading of deep-processing equipment and the manufacturing of aromatics, which has greatly alleviated insufficient supply of refined oil in the country and helped to produce high-quality oil products that meet international standards.

A manager at the refinery said that the refinery has become the most important one of its kind in the country, with the yearly production of gasoline increasing to 1.7 million tons from 600,000 tons in the past.

In addition, the project drove the technological progress of equipment manufacturing and employment in Central Asia, especially in Kazakhstan over the past few years, Li Zhigao, director of the project pointed out.