PETROCHINA Co plans to boost cooperation with overseas refiners, including Exxon Mobil Corp, BP Plc and Royal Dutch Shell Plc, as it seeks overseas resources, the country’s biggest oil and gas producer said yesterday. It also plans to increase imports of natural gas this year due to surging demand, Zhou Jiping, PetroChina’s chairman, said at a conference in Beijing yesterday. The purpose of cooperation is to seek acquisitions or joint [...]

China National Offshore Oil Corp — the country’s largest offshore oil producer — said on Thursday it has completed construction of Asia’s biggest deepwater platform in the South China Sea, marking a breakthrough for the company. The project, known as the Liwan 3-1 natural gas central offshore platform, will have an annual processing capacity of 12 billion cubic meters after completion and will be put into operation by the end [...]

Summary: “There are some who say that China National Petroleum Corp is limiting sales in order to pressure the government to raise prices, we absolutely do not have such an intention.” Zhou Jiping (周吉平), the newly-appointed Chairman of China National Petroleum Corp, has told domestic media that accusations that the company is deliberately limiting natural gas supplies in order to put pressure on the government to raise prices is false. [...]

Recent media reports claiming that PetroChina, the listed arm of CNPC, the nation’s top oil and gas producer, had restricted supplies of natural gas in some areas of the country in a bid to force a price spike were groundless, the company’s chief said Thursday. The tight supply of natural gas recently faced by some areas and industries was due to the company’s unintentionally normal moderation in supplies after excessive [...]

The first batch of 5,000-ton Chinese gasoline imports entered the Mongolian market on Thursday. The imports, known as “Mongolia No. 93 gasoline,” were part of an agreement reached earlier in the year by the Mongolian government and the China National Petroleum Group, Mongolian officials said. Under the cooperative project launched at the end of March, Mongolia will import a monthly total of 10,000 tons of gasoline from a refinery in [...]

Editor’s note: This is the seventh in a regular series of reports brought together under the banner “Lost Horizons”, which aim to show life in the less-reported areas of the country and to give a voice to those whose words often go unheard. Slideshows and video footage are also available at www.chinadaily.com.cn/video A truck laden with equipment for oil rigs bounced along a dried riverbed dotted with huge red wind- [...]

Sinopec Engineering (Group) Co., a subsidiary of China’s largest oil refiner Sinopec Group, announced Thursday that it will issue H-shares globally and will be listed on the main board of the Hong Kong Limited Stock Exchange in late May. Of the 1.328 billion H-shares it plans to issue globally, 5 percent will be initially offered during the Hong Kong public offering, the company said. The indicative price range will be [...]

The petrochemical industry’s practice of subsidizing oil refining businesses with earnings from chemical businesses has been severely tested. Marketization is the industry’s only way out. Lingering smog hovering over North China, especially Beijing, over the winter and spring triggered a wave of public discontent. Environmental protection authorities believe automobile exhaust to be a primary cause of the smog, saying that low-quality gasoline and diesel are used to fuel cars in [...]

For years CNPC and Gazprom were deadlocked over prices, but recent changes in global conditions nudged them toward an agreement President Xi Jinping’s state visit to Russia in late March brought advances that could end nine years of tough talks between China and its northern neighbor over natural gas transmission. China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC), the country’s largest producer of gas, signed a memorandum of understanding with Russian energy giant [...]

CHINA’S largest offshore oil producer said yesterday it has inked an agreement to buy liquefied natural gas from BG Group and increased its stakes in a LNG project in Australia. Under the contract, the China National Offshore Oil Corp will buy 5 million tons per annum (mtpa) of LNG, starting in 2015, from BG Group’s global LNG portfolio for 20 years. By then, the CNOOC’s mid-and-long-term LNG contracted volumes will [...]