DO PYONGYANG AND FINISH OFF THE PRC:

China suffers diesel shortage, disrupting industry (AP, Nov 8, 2010)

Local authorities imposed rolling blackouts on factories in August after Beijing called for efforts to curb surging energy demand, pollution and emissions of climate-changing greenhouse gases. That came after a campaign to make China's energy-guzzling economy more efficient suffered setbacks early this year due to due to a stimulus-fueled boom in steel, cement and other heavy industry.

Diesel supplies already were tighter than usual after refineries shut down in August and September for maintenance and demand from farmers and fishermen rose, said Tom Reed, London-based Asia energy editor at Argus Media, an energy news agency.

"It's kind of a perfect storm" that caused "a significant squeeze on the wholesale market," Reed said.

Fuel shortages were reported in areas from Dalian, a northeastern port, to Hangzhou on the east coast and Kunming in the southwest.

Some Chinese media and industry analysts blamed the shortages on China's major state-owned oil companies, PetroChina and Sinopec. They said the companies are withholding supplies while they wait for Beijing to boost retail prices that were left unchanged while global crude costs climbed from $70 a barrel at the start of the summer to nearly $90 now.

PetroChina and Sinopec are "stockpiling diesel in an attempt to blackmail the NDRC (China's main planning agency) into announcing another price rise," said Zhao Jingmin, an oil analyst for the industry website Chinachemnet.com. [...].

China's economy regularly is disrupted by government intervention in energy industries.