CNPC to buy Nippon Oil refinery

China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC) is acquiring a Japanese refinery, apparently seeking to expand both upstream and downstream operations in the foreign market. Hu Jie, a chief engineer with the refining and chemical branch of CNPC, said that the motivation for the move was not only to gain the refinery itself, but also to strengthen cooperation with its parent, which the the Chinese company did not specify. However, an officer from the Beijing office of Japan-based oil giant Nippon Oil Corp. confirmed that the refinery, located in Osaka in west Japan, is owned by Nippon Oil and that it has a processing capability of 115,000 barrels per day (bpd). How CNPC will buy the refinery is still under discussion and there is still no timetable, the officer said. Japanese oil importer, refiner and distributor Nippon Oil owns nine refineries with a combined daily oil refining capacity of 1.3 million barrels. The company accounts for 23% of the Japanese gasoline market. (April 15, 2009)