20 BEIJING, Nov. 20, 2009 (Xinhua News Agency) -- The following are top stories in China's oil, gas and petrochemical sector on Friday. 1. China and Sudan have inked three agreements on bilateral cooperatio n over oil and gas exploration and development in the African country.
The agreements include a MOU on the second phase expansion of Khartou m refinery and an agreement to swap equity between CNPC's Block 6 and Malaysia State Oil's Block 5A.
Through years of cooperation, Sudan has founded its own petroche mical industry and could fulfill domestic demand by home-made product oil from the Khartoum refinery. It also exports surplus crude oil to C hina in accordance with international prices, helping China to meet it s fast-growing domestic demand. 2. The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) on Thursday r uled out the fuel oil consumption tax cut in 2010, saying that the iss ue has not been decided by now, but is under studies and discussion.
As the international crude oil prices are expected to grow highe r, the domestic product oil prices will accordingly go uphill in China . Cutting fuel oil consumption tax could be one of the government's op tions to cushion impact of high oil price on relevant industries and o rdinary consumers. 3. Qatar Petroleum plans to line up with CNOOC to build a petrochemica l project in China's southernmost Hainan province with a total investm ent of 5.8 billion US dollars, Bloomberg reported Thursday. However, C NOOC did not confirm the report.
If the project is proven right, it will be a big boost to CNOOC' s operation in the South China Sea, which is under the direct administ rative division of Hainan province.
