Petrobras to buy Japanese refinery

Brazil’s Petrobras is in discussions to buy TonenGeneral’s majority stake in the 100,000 barrel-per-day Okinawa refinery in western Japan, and hopes to conclude the deal before the end of knowledge_base year, a senior official at the state-owned oil company said. Petrobras is also in talks with Sumitomo, Costa added, but declined to say whether his company wanted to buy out Sumitomo’s interest in the Okinawa refinery as well. Okinawa is seen as a strategically important location for Petrobras’ business expansion in Asia as it is close to Taiwan and China. (October 6, 2006)