Head of British oil major BP, Lord John Browne, will visit China next month and meet with its three largest oil companies amid reports his company is seeking an ambitious deal with Sinopec, the company said yesterday.
"Browne will come to China for a regular visit as a member of the advisory board of Tsinghua University," BP spokesman Michael Zhao said. "Of course he will use this opportunity to meet all of BP's partners while he is here."
China's major oil companies are China National Petroleum Corp, CNOOC (China National Offshore Oil Corp) and Sinopec (China Petroleum Chemical Corp).
Of them, Sinopec is holding high-level discussions with BP on a deal which could equal BP's historic seven billion dollars joint venture with Tyumen Oil Co in Russia two years ago, the Financial Times said last week.
A deal with the Hong Kong-listed Sinopec would help BP gain access to the market for refining and oil sales in what is now the fastest-growing major economy in terms of energy use, the newspaper reported.
The Chinese firm would in return get a boost in exploration, where it currently lags behind domestic rivals PetroChina and CNOOC, it added.
A BP executive was quoted as saying: "Browne has big ambitions for China. China needs the feedstock, BP has got it and BP wants access to the market."
However, any deal is greatly complicated by Beijing's desire to keep its strategically vital oil industry under domestic control.
Super Typhoon Kong-rey is the largest cyclone to impact Taiwan in 27 years, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said today. Kong-rey’s radius of maximum wind (RMW) — the distance between the center of a cyclone and its band of strongest winds — has expanded to 320km, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. The last time a typhoon of comparable strength with an RMW larger than 300km made landfall in Taiwan was Typhoon Herb in 1996, he said. Herb made landfall between Keelung and Suao (蘇澳) in Yilan County with an RMW of 350km, Chang said. The weather station in Alishan (阿里山) recorded 1.09m of
NO WORK, CLASS: President William Lai urged people in the eastern, southern and northern parts of the country to be on alert, with Typhoon Kong-rey approaching Typhoon Kong-rey is expected to make landfall on Taiwan’s east coast today, with work and classes canceled nationwide. Packing gusts of nearly 300kph, the storm yesterday intensified into a typhoon and was expected to gain even more strength before hitting Taitung County, the US Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center said. The storm is forecast to cross Taiwan’s south, enter the Taiwan Strait and head toward China, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The CWA labeled the storm a “strong typhoon,” the most powerful on its scale. Up to 1.2m of rainfall was expected in mountainous areas of eastern Taiwan and destructive winds are likely
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday at 5:30pm issued a sea warning for Typhoon Kong-rey as the storm drew closer to the east coast. As of 8pm yesterday, the storm was 670km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻) and traveling northwest at 12kph to 16kph. It was packing maximum sustained winds of 162kph and gusts of up to 198kph, the CWA said. A land warning might be issued this morning for the storm, which is expected to have the strongest impact on Taiwan from tonight to early Friday morning, the agency said. Orchid Island (Lanyu, 蘭嶼) and Green Island (綠島) canceled classes and work
KONG-REY: A woman was killed in a vehicle hit by a tree, while 205 people were injured as the storm moved across the nation and entered the Taiwan Strait Typhoon Kong-rey slammed into Taiwan yesterday as one of the biggest storms to hit the nation in decades, whipping up 10m waves, triggering floods and claiming at least one life. Kong-rey made landfall in Taitung County’s Chenggong Township (成功) at 1:40pm, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The typhoon — the first in Taiwan’s history to make landfall after mid-October — was moving north-northwest at 21kph when it hit land, CWA data showed. The fast-moving storm was packing maximum sustained winds of 184kph, with gusts of up to 227kph, CWA data showed. It was the same strength as Typhoon Gaemi, which was the most
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