According to a recent report in The Wall Street Journal, China Petrochemical Corporation (Sinopec) will emphasize acquisition of foreign oil and gas assets to 2010 to build the company into an international oil major.  As the article notes:

“…Su Shulin said at the company’s internal annual meeting that Sinopec, as the company is known, should combine its competitive advantages in refining, trading, engineering services and oil and gas exploration and production to obtain more foreign assets, according to a posting on the company’s Web site yesterday.

Sinopec, the country’s second-largest oil company by assets, in December signed a $2 billion agreement with Iran to develop the Yadavaran oil field, expected to have output of 300,000 barrels of crude oil a day.

Mr. Su also said the company should increase domestic exploration to add to the Puguang gas field, found in 2006 to be one of the country’s largest.

The company has set targets for discovery of oil reserves and operation-revenue growth by 2010, it said without disclosing the targets.

Sinopec is interested in investing in foreign upstream resources, despite a November report in which the International Energy Agency discouraged China from locking up foreign oil and gas resources.”