Rosneft, CNPC to soon appoint board of venture building refinery in China
BEIJING. Oct 11 (Interfax) - Russian oil major Rosneft and China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) will soon form the board of directors of the Vostok Petrochemicals joint venture that is implementing a project to build an oil refinery in the Chinese city of Tianjin, Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin told reporters.
Rosneft will present its nominations to the board to the Chinese company, Sechin said.
The project to build the refinery will be based on the agreements reached earlier. Production at the refinery will be geared toward petrochemicals, base oils and exports of oil products.
Sechin also said the energy dialog with China included discussions about such exploration and production projects as Magadan-1, and the work of Rosneft and Sinopec joint ventures on the development of the Venninsky block and deposits in Udmurtia (Udmurtneft ).
As reported earlier, the agreement on the feasibility study for the construction of the refinery in Tianjin was signed in 2010 within the context of the Vostok Petrochemicals joint venture (49% owned by Rosneft, 51% by CNPC), and a ceremony was held to lay the first foundation stone of the future refinery.
The refinery is expected to process 13 million tonnes of oil per year, including about 9 million tonnes from Russia. The crude will be shipped by tanker to the port terminal in Tianjin and then travel by pipeline the remaining 42 km to the refinery. The light oil products yield is expected to be more than 80% at the new plant. The target markets for the oil products are Northern China and the Central Plains region (including Beijing, Tianjin, and the provinces of Hebei, Shanxi, Henan and Shandong), as well as the coast of Eastern China.
The companies are also considering building a chain of filling stations under the joint venture.
