State-run CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) said it signed an agreement with China Petroleum & Chemical Corp (Sinopec, 中國石油化工) to conduct joint energy exploration off northern Australia.
CPC will buy a 40 percent stake in China Petrochemical’s NT/P76 offshore block from the Beijing-based refiner and oil producer, the Taiwanese oil company said in a statement posted on its Web site yesterday. It gave no financial details.
“CPC is now more inclined to cooperate with China’s oil majors, after in the past competing with them for assets in Africa,” said Yang Feng-shuo (楊豐碩), director of energy studies at Taiwan Institute of Economic Research in Taipei.
“I believe there’ll be more cases of similar cooperation,” Yang said.
CPC and Sinopec have yet to discuss details of their cooperation, CPC vice president Lin Maw-wen (林茂文) said by telephone yesterday.
The NT/P76 block, which Sinopec, China’s largest oil refiner, bought outright in an auction last year, may hold as much as 368 billion cubic meters of natural gas, CPC said.
CPC first cooperated with Sinopec in 2004, when the companies joined exploration in an Australian area known as AC/P21, operated by Italy’s Eni SpA, CPC said in the statement.
The Taiwanese company said in May it was in talks with China National Offshore Oil Corp (中國海洋石油), China’s third-biggest oil producer, to buy some of the Beijing-based company’s rights to a Cambodian oil area, after acquiring a 30 percent stake in a Kenyan block from the Chinese company in December.
The two are also jointly exploring energy sources in the Taiwan Strait.
Meanwhile, CPC said its ethylene plants have returned to normal operations after production was cut in the wake of Typhoon Morakot.
The refiner’s three ethylene plants, known as naphtha crackers, are operating at 95 percent capacity, after output was cut to 70 percent on Sunday because flooding caused by Typhoon Morakot reduced demand for the petrochemical from customers, Lin said.
About five of the stations remained closed and the company “expects to clean them all up today,” Lin said.
CPC is standing by to provide gasoline and diesel for relief efforts, he said.
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