BP in talks with China's big 3 oil firms to supply more LNG: Report

Anglo-American oil giant BP PLC said it is in talks with China's big three oil companies in boosting its liquefied natural gas (LNG) supplies to the country, AFX reported Wednesday.

"We have been talking to PetroChina, CNOOC and Sinopec" on supplying LNG to China, said Dan Westbrook, BP China president for gas, power and upstream.

The central government has given preliminary approval to China's largest oil company, PetroChina, to build three LNG terminals in the provinces of Jiangsu, Hebei and Liaoning.

"PetroChina is actively seeking an LNG supply for their terminals," he said on the sidelines of a business conference.

BP has a 30 pct interest in CNOOC's LNG project in Guangdong province in southern China, and the UK oil firm's Tangguh LNG gas field in Indonesia won a contract earlier to supply LNG to CNOOC's LNG terminal in south

China's Fujian for at least 25 years.

BP also has six liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) joint ventures in southern and eastern China with total investment of over 250 mln usd.

China is planning to build 20 LNG terminals with demand expected to grow to 200 bln cubic meters by 2010.

But Westbrook said he thinks that only 10 of those will come into operation before to 2010.

"There are physical limitations as far as equipment is concerned. It will be difficult to build all those terminals at once," he said.

So far BP has spent three bln usd in China and will spend at least another 500 mln usd this year, he said.

"We would like to grow in LNG and other sectors in China. The entire spectrum is of interest to us," he added.

"We are looking at investing in downstream, refining and upstream," he said.

Westbrook said 40 pct of BP's investments in China are in LNG, 40 pct in chemicals and the remaining 20 pct in downstream products.

BP is planning to establish over 1,000 joint-venture gas stations in the country's eastern and southern provinces, including Jiangsu, Fujian and Guangdong.(*)