A labourer works at a PetroChina refinery in Suining, southwest China’s Sichuan province November 22, 2007. Expect no radical “big bang” in China’s shake-up of its giant state-run energy firms, but a series of experimental and incremental steps that Beijing has quietly embarked on may still bring meaningful change to an economically crucial sector. Reform of sprawling state-owned enterprises (SOEs) to improve efficiency is a priority for China’s leaders as growth slows in the world’s second biggest economy, and was a key plank of the country’s latest five-year plan agreed in 2015. For some sectors that means mega-mergers, such as the marriage last year of top train makers China CNR Corp Ltd and China CSR Corp Ltd, to create national champions with the heft to compete on the world stage. Speculation of a similar tie-up in the oil sector has proved unfounded, and Beijing-based industry executives say the bolder […]