Chinese Government Urges Oil Firms To Increase Diesel Shipments To Ag. Sector During Spring & Summer

China's commerce ministry on Wednesday urged major oil firms to increase diesel supplies to meet rising demand in the agricultural sector during spring and summer.

Companies and government agencies must "spare no efforts to carry out various measures to ensure diesel supplies in the rural areas," the Ministry of Commerce said in a statement on its website. The ministry said it would closely monitor inventories and clamp down on any unapproved price hikes and speculative hoarding.

China's government is paying close attention to inflation, which is lingering near 12-year highs and is hitting the countryside harder than the cities. In March, rural inflation was 9.0 percent, compared with urban inflation of 8.0 percent, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

Chinese oil companies, despite huge profits from upstream operations, have been suffering from heavy losses in refining operations because of soaring crude oil prices and the country's central pricing system for oil products.

EDIT

http://www.terradaily.com/reports/China_tells_companies_to_provide_more_diesel_to_agriculture_999.html

from food problems, pollution problems, and energy problems? Or is it just that the Chinese government stamps down any bad news?

Desertification is eating the country alive, there's pollution on a scale that Soviet East Germany look like Switzerland, and the Banqiao collapse was an energy disaster writ large - around 300,000 killed and over 10 million made homeless, sick or otherwise affected (But then, hydro always has been the only renewable to scale things up properly ;) )

Oh, and let's not forget the "Period of Three Difficult Years", back around 1960, when due to "mismanagement" anything up to 50,000,000 Chinese dropped dead of starvation.

So no, not immune. But nor do they entirely hide it, either: You'll find stuff on Bangiao, the "Period of Three Difficult Years", the Songhua River Benzene spill, the Beijiang River Cadmium spill, Chinese desertification - and of course, my personal favourite, the bubbling white liquid that the renewables peanut gallery seem so reluctant to address - all filed away in a search engine near you.

I think the basic truth is that we don't know because most of us just don't give a shit - it's too damn far away, and they are not us. We've got more important things to worry about than a few Chinese.

Hey, look! "Dog nurses nine orphaned kittens"...
Awwww.