Chinese oil group Sinopec’s chairman, Fu Chengyu, said today the firm was looking to grow more overseas through expanding co-operation with western firms, including Talisman.
Mr Fu was reported as saying Sinopec was already looking at ways to widen its partnership with the Canadian operator.
The Chinese company is awaiting completion on a deal to pay £956million for a 49% stake in Talisman’s UK North Sea business, creating a new joint-venture business.
Mr Fu said that, rather than taking over western firms, Sinopec was looking at partnering options due to a continuing wariness of Chinese suitors.
His comments were made at a London oil conference where he was speaking and became the first entrepreneur from China to become the Energy Intelligence Group’s peer-selected Petroleum Executive of the Year in 15 years.
Mr Fu has been chairman of Sinopec since 2011 and was described as having since then “reframed the overseas strategy of Sinopec”.
EIG said that in 2011, amongst the 11 overseas oil and gas mergers and acquisitions completed that year, Sinopec alone accounted for five.
In accepting his award, Mr Fu said: “Sinopec is a huge organisation, measured not just by our Fortune 10 size and over one million employees, but also as the provider of 60% of China’s oil product needs.
“We now have business engagements in more than 50 countries and regions all over the world, making over $10billion (£6billion) of overseas investments in the past two years, changing the way in which we engage in the world’s oil and gas markets.
“China’s ‘go out’ policy is active in many sectors, but none more so than in ours. The ‘go out’ strategy is a critical component of China’s embrace of international markets and an increasingly global society in which we know we can play a growing part.
“At every level, Chinese people are engaging with the world like never before.
“At the same time, we in China are extremely conscious that our fast economic growth – which has brought unparalleled improvements in health and wellbeing for hundreds of millions of our people – has also resulted in an acceleration of global resource pressures.
“We have to be, we are determined to be, part of the solution to these challenges, particularly climate change and environmental protection.
“So this award, and the rest of my time at the helm of Sinopec, is committed to the common goal we must share – of addressing the balance between meeting our growing human needs whilst mitigating our environmental impact.
“This is perhaps the defining challenge of our age, and I hope we can all commit to addressing it together.”