http://www.canada.com/edmontonjournal/news/story.html?id=a0fadc90-c1fb-4...
China to expand oilsands presence
July 20, 2007
SHANGHAI (Bloomberg) - China National Petroleum Corp., the nation's largest oil producer, plans to expand its cooperation with Canadian partners on oil sands projects, refuting a company official's comment that it will slow down investment.
The company has made an extensive study on oil sands resources and technology, and acquired exploration rights to 11 oil blocks in Alberta early this year, China National Petroleum, parent of Hong Kong-listed PetroChina Co., said in a statement on its Web site today.
Yiwu Song, a vice president at China National Petroleum, said last week the company will focus on processing Venezuelan oil and slow spending in Canada. Alberta's tar-like reserves may contain 175 billion barrels of recoverable oil, second only to Saudi Arabia's 259 billion barrels, according to the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers.
"We will jointly explore mutually beneficial collaboration in oil sands development, crude oil pipeline construction and downstream upgrading," China National Petroleum said in today's statement.
The Chinese company was awarded 259 square kilometers (100 square miles) of oil-sands leases in northern Alberta, the Globe and Mail reported June 21, citing Zhang Xin, director general of external affairs for the state-owned company, who spoke at an energy conference in Edmonton.
The oil producer became the first Chinese company that has taken a majority stake in an oil-sands development, the newspapers said in June, without citing anybody.
Oil companies including Suncor Energy Inc. will invest an estimated C$45.2 billion this year in oil, natural-gas and tar-sands projects, according to Calgary brokerage FirstEnergy Capital Corp.
China National Petroleum's Song also said PetroChina dropped a plan to ship oil sands through a $4 billion oil link across Canada because of construction delays.
