From right, Wang Zhuoyan, executive vice-president of HQC, Xu Ling, HQC USA president, and Cao Derong, consul and director of commerce of Chinese Consulate General, cut the ribbon at the Houston office opening ceremony on Nov 26, 2014. MAY ZHOU / CHINA DAILY

China Huanqiu Contracting and Engineering Corporation (HQC), a subsidiary of China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) and one of the largest engineering companies in China, celebrated the opening of its USA branch HQC USA LLC on Wednesday in Houston.

This also marks the one year anniversary of HQC USA operation, which registered in Texas in Oct 2013.

According to its president Xu Ling, in one year, HQC USA has already contracted roughly $50 million in services to provide front-end engineering and design for a $1 billion methanol manufacturing complex for Yuhuan Chemical in Louisiana and a Texas clean energy project in Odessa.

HQC USA also signed a cooperation agreement with Houston-based DKRW Energy LLC yesterday based on their preliminary negotiations.

DKRW’s managing director Robert Kelly, who signed the agreement, said: “We choose to work with HQC because of their large scale and expertise in many of the areas that we are now working in. We have discussed cooperation in coal, LNG and chemicals.”

Charlie Yao, CEO and president of Yuhuan, said his company wants to use HQC’s expertise to facilitate its Louisiana project.

“HQC is a big company, they have a lot of international business partners here and in the world. This would help us to integrate smoothly in the US. We are forming a joint management to oversee the project and we have seven people from HQC to help us run our operation,” said Yao.

Wang Zhuoyan, HQC executive vice-president, said at the ceremony, “Today is a special day for HQC. Our Houston office would not have been established so smoothly without the support from the Chinese Consulate General, would not have grown in such a healthy and strong manner without the trust of our clients such as Yuhuang and DKWR.”

Wang said that HQC is an engineering pioneer in China and launched international projects more than 20 years ago.

“Starting from South East Asia, our footprint has successfully expanded to the Mideast, Europe, Africa and Latin America. Now we finally stepped into the US, one of the most high-end markets, as our ultimate destination. With 60 years accruement of engineering expertise and strength, we are going to bring the most competitive engineering associates and diversified global resources to our clients here.”

HQC USA President Xu Ling said she hopes that the Houston office, serving as HQC’s presence in the USA market, will further the company’s international influence. “A lot of US companies don’t know much about us, hopefully our presence will change that. In addition, we would like to know more about the operation of the US companies and learn from them.”

Cao Derong, consul and director of commerce of Chinese Consulate General in Houston, praised HQC USA’s presence as “a new milestone of cooperation in engineering design and construction between China and the US, this is a good beginning”.

CNPC chief representative in Houston Xiong Jiawei also attended the ceremony. According to Xiong, currently there are eight CNPC subsidiaries established in Houston, ranging from trade and research to service.

mayzhou@chinadailyusa.com