PetroChina, the country’s largest oil company, has signed a 25-year agreement to buy three million tons of liquefied natural gas a year from Iran to supply terminals it plans to build on China‘s northern coast. Gas deliveries will start in 2011. The company is expanding gas production and sales as demand for cleaner-burning fuels increases in the world’s fastest-growing major economy.
China Petrochemical Corp, the nation’s second-largest oil company, is also in negotiations with Iran for an agreement estimated to be worth as much as US$100 billion (HK$780 billion), involving crude oil and LNG.