PetroChina, the country's largest oil producer, said it has agreed to buy assets from parent China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) for 43.8 million yuan ($6.27 million).

 

The oil major will buy the assets of Northeast China Inspection and Maintenance Operations from CNPC.

 

"The acquisition will enhance the ability to safely and smoothly operate inspection and maintenance services, and to consolidate the inspection and maintenance resources of the target entities," the company said in a statement.

 

"At present, the allocation of resources for inspection and maintenance services in Northeast China are not concentrated and business development is imbalanced," it said.

 

The Northeast China Inspection and Maintenance Operations mainly comprises the inspection and maintenance services related to the refining and chemical operations in the country's Northeast region. It has a total of six companies in the region.

 

In the year ended Dec 31, 2007, Northeast China Inspection and Maintenance Operations reported a net loss of 199.1 million yuan.

 

Analysts said the latest move is in line with the company's expansion in the production scale of its refining and chemical business and the increase in equipment used.

 

In the first quarter, PetroChina processed 217 million barrels of crude oil, an increase of 7.4 percent from a year earlier.

 

The company produced 216 million barrels of crude oil in the period, up 3.3 percent a year earlier. Its natural gas output was 484.7 billion cubic feet, an increase of 18 percent.

 

Earlier this month, it also started construction of its first liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal in Dalian, a port city in Liaoning province.

 

The project, with a total investment of more than 10 billion yuan, consists of a wharf, a receiving facility and transportation pipelines. It is designed to receive supplies from Qatar, Australia and other overseas markets.

 

A new LNG receiving facility in Rudong county, Jiangsu province, is also being built.

 

This year, the operation of four refineries, each with a processing capacity of 10 million tons or more, is expected to greatly boost the growth of CNPC. The four refineries are located in Dalian, Fushun, Dushanzi and Guangxi. The first three are being expanded and the last is under construction.

 

The company last year processed 121.73 million tons of crude oil, up 5.1 percent over a year earlier.

 

Similarly, CNPC increased its crude production by 1 million tons and natural gas output by 10 billion cubic meters last year.

 

The company in February also started the construction of the second west-to-east natural gas pipeline, which will mainly carry natural gas from Turkmenistan and the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region to the Yangtze and Pearl River deltas, the country's two most developed regions.