The Overseas Petroleum Investment Corp., a subsidiary of Taiwan's state-owned CPC Corp., and Sinopec International Petroleum Exploration and Production Corp., a subsidiary of mainland China's Sinopec Group, recently signed an agreement that calls for the two companies to explore jointly a natural gas region located in a sea basin roughly 330 kilometers off the coast of Darwin, Australia. It marks the first time that CPC has ever had a one-on-one partnership with Sinopec in the exploration of natural gas. The agreement was signed by Hsu Yong-yao, CPC's acting chief executive officer of exploration and production business division, and Zhou Yuqi, president of SIPC. The signing ceremony, however, was kept very low key, with none of the customary interviews with the press either before or after. CPC emphasized that this was to fulfil the wish by the other side for confidentiality. The natural gas basin to be explored is known by its technical name as block NT/P76. According to CPC, Sinopec won sole bidding rights last year to explore the field. In June 2009 both sides held meetings in Singapore to determine the specifics, and it was settled that an agreement would be signed with CPC having 40 percent stake.
