OPEC president visiting China for enengy co-op
(AFP)
Updated: 2005-12-22 22:08

Analysts said the group's mission was to open up talks with China as well as making sure that China's refineries has the necessary capacity for OPEC's crude oil.

"China is the largest component of oil demand growth in the world and it just wants to make sure that there is an open dialogue with that country," said Adrian Loh, regional energy analyst with Merril Lynch in Singapore.

"They just want to make sure that China ... is adequately supplied, possibly might also want to make sure that the refineries that are coming up in China are of sufficient complexity to take into account the type of crudes coming out of OPEC."

Sheikh Ahmad said earlier he would also complete negotiations in China that began in Kuwait two weeks ago for the construction of a five-billion-dollar refining and petrochemicals complex in Guangdong province.

On December 5, the two countries signed a memorandum of understanding for the project that includes building a refinery with a capacity of between 200,000 and 400,000 barrels per day (bpd).

OPEC now faces stronger competition than ever with other non-OPEC suppliers. Kazakhstan last week launched a new 806-million-dollar oil pipeline to China that symbolises Beijing's growing influence in ex-Soviet Central Asia.

China has also been pressing Russia, its largest non-OPEC supplier, to work toward an early agreement on a oil pipeline from Russian oil fields in Siberia to China.

Russia delivered 5.8 million tons of crude by rail to China last year and that amount would reach 8.0 million tons this year.

OPEC's members are Saudi Arabia, Iran, Venezuela, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Iraq, Nigeria, Libya, Indonesia, Algeria and Qatar.