The Wall Street Journal is quoting sources that Sinopec, China’s largest petroleum refining company, “is in early talks with U.S.-based oil-and-gas producer Apache to buy a minority stake in a liquefied natural gas project on Canada’s Pacific coast.” And since Apache is a partner with Chevron in KM LNG, that means the project commonly known as Kitimat LNG.
Wall Street Journal story (subscription required)
Costs rising
Sinopec is looking at several of the at least 13 LNG projects in the northwest BC region. The reports say that Sinopec management has not yet signed off any investment and say that any Sinopec investment would go toward the rising costs of the KM LNG project’s costs, which Apache now estimate will be about $15 billion US.
“Apache is moving forward with the project, and we’re looking for partners,” says an Apache spokesman, according to the reports. It appears that Apache is once again recalculating the cost of the Kitimat project.
Sinopec, the China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation is the world’s fifth largest company by revenue. It has a $4.65 billion stake in the bitumen sands giant Syncrude and owns the Canadian energy company Sinopec Daylight Energy Ltd through Sinopec Canada.
It was a Sinopec pipeline that exploded in Qindao in Eastern China, killing 55 people on Friday, as well as spilling oil into the nearby sea.