BLOOMBERG: CPC Corp, the Taiwanese government-owned oil company, has reached agreement with China Petrochemical Corp to conduct joint energy exploration off northern Australia.

CPC will buy a 40 percent stake in China Petrochemical's NT/P76 offshore block, the Taiwan oil company said in a statement posted on its website yesterday. The statement gave no financial details.

The NT/P76 block, which Sinopec Group, as China Petrochemical is known, bought outright at auction last year, may hold as much as 368 billion cubic meters of natural gas, CPC said.

CPC first cooperated with Sinopec Group in 2004, when the companies joined in the exploration of an Australian area known as AC/P21, which was operated by Eni SpA, Italy's biggest oil company, CPC said in its statement yesterday.

The Taiwan-based oil company is buying energy assets as it seeks to secure stable oil supplies, the company said. Taiwan imports more than 99 percent of its crude oil needs.

CPC said in May it was in talks with China National Offshore Oil Corp, the mainland's third-biggest oil producer, to buy some of the Beijing-based company's rights to a Cambodian oil area, after acquiring a 30 percent stake in a Kenyan block from the mainland company in December.

CPC and China National Offshore are also jointly exploring in the Taiwan Straits.

The mainland and Taiwan agreed in April to let their financial institutions invest and operate cross-border, expand direct flights and cooperate in fighting crime.

China Petrochemical is the parent of China Petroleum & Chemical Corp, or Sinopec, China's largest oil refiner.

Bloomberg News

(HK Edition 08/13/2009 page2)