ELF GROUP WILL SPEED STUDY FOR SHANGHAI AREA REFINERY
France's Ste. Nationale Elf Aquitaine and partners will step up the pace of feasibility studies for construction of a large refinery in the Padong area, near Shanghai, China.
The action follows a visit to China by Elf Pres. Loik Le Floch-Prigent.
Studies are in a very early stage in partnership with China's Sinopec and others.
Elf, meantime, has signed a trade agreement National Chemicals Import & Export Corp. (Sinochem) calling for a 3 year, $1 billion exchange of crude oil, petroleum products, chemicals, and pharmaceutical raw material.
Construction of the joint venture refinery under study could make Elf the second western company to enter China's refining operations.
France's Total last summer acquired a 20% interest in a joint venture to build a 100,000 b/d export refinery at Dalian, Liaoning province, based on Middle East feedstock (OGJ, June 17, Newsletter).
Elsewhere in China's downstream sector, Royal Dutch/Shell later agreed with five Chinese partners to conduct a feasibility study for construction of a $2.5 billion refining and petrochemical complex at Aotou, Guangdong province (OGJ, Aug. 5, Newsletter).
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