BEIJING - China Petrochemical Corp, the nation's second-biggest energy producer, completed a $1.3 billion natural-gas pipeline in Brazil before a visit by Chinese President Hu Jintao seeking to deepen bilateral ties.

The 1,377-kilometer (856-mile) link is the company's largest overseas service contract, Sinopec Group, as China Petrochemical is known, said in a statement on its Website on Tuesday. The pipeline goes through 72 cities and can transport 20 million cubic meters of gas a day, according to the statement.

China is expanding investment in Brazil's oil, mining and steel industries to meet rising demand in the world's fastest-growing major economy. During Hu's visit on April 15-16, Wuhan Iron & Steel Group will sign a contract with Brazilian port operator LLX Logistica SA to build a $4.7 billion steel plant, O Estado de S. Paulo reported on March 28.

Brazil and China may also announce a $10 billion loan agreement between Petroleo Brasileiro SA and China Development Bank Corp, the Sao Paulo-based newspaper said, without saying where it got the information.

Petrobras, as the Rio de Janeiro-based company is known, received $10 billion of loans from China last year to help finance the development of Tupi field, the largest oil discovery in the Americas in more than three decades.

In return, state-controlled Petrobras has been supplying oil to China, the world's second-biggest energy user and Brazil's leading trade partner in 2009.

Recent oil discoveries by Petrobras and OGX Petroleo e Gas Participacoes SA show that Brazil's petroleum fields are "virtually virgin," OGX Chairman Eike Batista said on March 31.

Bloomberg News

(China Daily 04/08/2010 page16)