The China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation (Sinopec) announced Thursday that its Sinopec Oilfield Service Company has signed an agreement worth about $1.1 billion to construct natural gas pipelines for Saudi Aramco, the state oil company of Saudi Arabia.
The Sinopec subsidiary is stepping into the third phase of a massive Saudi Aramco project to develop a natural gas pipeline network. Aramco canceled plans last year to increase oil production. Instead, it plans to increase natural gas production by 60 percent by the end of this decade — an ambitious goal that will require a vast network for moving the gas within Saudi Arabia, and perhaps for exporting it.