Chinese companies at a glance

Sinopec engineering contracts

China Petrochemical Corp (Sinopec), Asia's largest oil refiner, signed overseas engineering contracts worth $1.698 billion in the first seven months this year, up 193 percent year-on-year, the company said last Monday.

Zhang Yaocang, the company's vice general manager, said the number of Sinopec's overseas engineering teams had risen from 62 in 2003 to 225 in 2008 while the value of contracts signed in a year had increased from $180 million to $1.93 billion in 2007, with an annual growth rate averaging 81 percent.

Last year, the company completed contracts worth $1.21 billion with a profit of $460 million.

Liu Jinxin, general manager of Sinopec International Petroleum Service Corp, said the company's engineering teams had finished 236 contracts, or 72.8 percent of the signed total, in 30 countries in the first half of 2008.

ZTE's next-generation facility

ZTE Corp, a major telecom equipment maker, said it will invest a total of 6 billion yuan over several years to build a facility in Xi'an to manufacture and research next-generation mobile communications.

ZTE will work on the homegrown TD-SCDMA and other 3.5G and 4G (fourth generation) technologies and related products at the Xi'an plant, the company said.

The firm said the value of the facility's output is likely to be 18 billion yuan annually, of which 2 billion yuan will be contributed by its software business.

ZTE is one of the major equipment vendors for China Mobile's TD-SCDMA network and is bidding to clinch contracts to upgrade the operator's network and that of China Telecom too.

Takeover gets nod

Two major shareholders in Australian iron ore mining business Midwest Corp have accepted takeover offers from Sinosteel Corp, giving the Chinese steelmaker more than an 82 percent stake in the company.

Sinosteel said last week its offer was accepted by Murchison Metals Ltd, which holds 9 percent of Midwest shares, and Armadale Offshore Inc with 12 percent.

Sinosteel wants access to Midwest's Australian iron ore assets to serve China's booming steel industry, which is dependent on global mining giants Rio Tinto Ltd and BHP Billiton Ltd. China's mills have had to agree to price rises of up to 96 percent for iron ore from the two.

Sinosteel gained a controlling 50.97 percent stake in Midwest in July but is still pursuing full ownership.

SAIC restructuring deals

SAIC Motor, China's largest automaker, is considering injecting its commercial vehicle assets into Shanghai Diesel Engine, which it is in the process of taking over.

The proposed asset transfer, which is still in the early stages of consideration, would involve an issue of new shares by Shanghai Diesel Engine to SAIC in exchange for control of heavy-duty truck maker SAIC-Iveco Hongyan Commercial Vehicle Co and other assets, a source said.

An SAIC spokeswoman said there had been no discussions of such a plan at the company.

"We have never discussed such a plan. We will announce all major restructuring deals in a timely manner," she said.

LNG delivery accepted

CLP Holdings Ltd, Hong Kong's biggest power utility, will take delivery of liquefied natural gas from supplier BG Group Plc because of increased demand even as a plan to build a terminal in the city has been scrapped.

"We will continue with the BG contract," Rhonda Lam, a public relations official at CLP, said in an e-mail. CLP may receive BG's LNG cargoes in China's mainland instead, Lam said.

CLP won't pursue a plan to build a $1-billion LNG terminal in Hong Kong with Exxon Mobil Corp after the city's government secured energy supplies from the mainland. BG LNG Trading was to deliver 1 million metric tons a year to the proposed terminal for 20 years starting in 2013.

Hong Kong and the mainland will jointly develop an LNG terminal in nearby Shenzhen on the mainland as one of three gas supply options for the territory, according to a memorandum of understanding signed last month.

(China Daily 09/22/2008 page7)