Related News

Home » Business » Energy

Nation seals Kazakh oil deals

CHINA has agreed to lend US$10 billion to Kazakhstan in return for a right to invest in an oil company in the resource-rich Central Asian country.

Under the package signed on Thursday, China National Petroleum Corp will lend US$5 billion to KazMunaiGaz National Co. The Export-Import Bank of China, a policy lender, will lend another US$5 billion to the state-owned Development Bank of Kazakhstan.

CNPC and KazMunaiGaz also agreed to jointly buy AO MangistauMunaiGas, a Kazakh oil and gas producer which holds 36 oil and gas fields, from Indonesia's Central Asia Petroleum Ltd.

China and Kazakhstan, which share a border, have intensified cooperation in the fields of energy and finance, and the future outlook is bright even in the context of a global financial crisis, CNPC said in a statement quoting Vice Premier Wang Qishan.

Kazakhstan, which aims to prevent its first economic contraction in a decade, is seeking foreign funding in the exploration and production sectors. It holds 3.2 percent of the world's proven oil reserves.

China has signed three other loan-for-oil agreements, with Russia, Brazil and Venezuela, as the nation taps the US$1.95 trillion foreign exchange reserves for energy assets. Oil prices are now at only about a third of last July's record high.

Meanwhile, China's refinery output rose 0.7 percent in March on a yearly basis, the first rise in five months, pointing to a recovery in fuel demand, car sales and the economy.

Refinery throughput rose to 29.37 million tons in March, also the highest in five months, the National Bureau of Statistics said yesterday.

Analyst Gordon Kwan, of financial services company Mirae Asset, said this was another positive point following last week's March crude imports surge and was a positive development because the average domestic gross refining margin should be much better than last year thanks to implementation of fuel pricing reform.




 

Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.

沪公网安备 31010602000204号

Email this to your friend