NANJING - Sinopec Yizheng Chemical Fibre Co Ltd, a subsidiary of China's largest oil refiner Sinopec, put into operation the 12th of its 12 meltblown non-woven fabric production lines Saturday to meet the brisk demand of face mask producers.

Sinopec has now completed the construction of all its 16 production lines of such fabric. After the full operation of the 16 production lines and together with Sinopec's joint venture enterprises that can produce seven tonnes of meltblown non-woven fabric every day, the daily production capacity of the company is expected to reach 37 tonnes, and its annual production capacity will exceed 13,500 tons, which can be used in making 13.5 billion medical masks.

As the essential material to make masks, the non-woven fabric is the core raw material that serves as the filtering layer in the middle part of masks to absorb dust, bacteria and pollen.

Sinopec has spent 76 days to construct the world's largest meltblown non-woven fabric production base since it launched its construction plan on Feb 24, according to the company.

Sinopec is the upstream producer of the polypropylene raw materials in the industrial mask chain. Faced with a market shortage of masks, the company invested 300 million yuan ($42 million) to build the production facilities in its subsidiaries Sinopec Beijing Yanshan Petrochemical Co Ltd in Beijing and Sinopec Yizheng Chemical Fibre in Jiangsu.