Sinopec Corp (0386.HK), Asia's largest refiner, and Chinese state trader Zhuhai Zhenrong Corp will together lift around 505,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude from Iran in 2016, the same as this year when they took roughly half of the Islamic Republic's total exports, the sources said.

Rosneft received advance payments for oil supplies worth more than $15bn in the third quarter — the first large-scale financing that the state-controlled Russian group has secured since western sanctions were imposed upon it.

For China, the opportunity to re-negotiate existing liquefied natural gas (LNG) supply contracts with Shell, which combined with BG would supply around 30 percent of its imports by 2017, comes at an ideal time because the world's top energy consumer faces a large surfeit over the next five years.

The financing problems for the project stems from U.S.-led sanctions against Russia’s oil and natural gas sector over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in early 2014. Also, in June the EU extended economic sanctions on Russia until January 3, in a move that media said at the time was “keeping up pressure on Moscow to help resolve the Ukraine conflict.”

The country produced 44.5 million tons of petrochemicals in the past Iranian calendar year (ended on March 20, 2015), with over 10 percent rise from 40.5 million tons in its preceding year.

A Chinese holding company signed a letter of intent to purchase oil and gas assets in the Permian basin of West Texas for $1.3 billion through a limited liability partnership.

BP and China Huadian Corporation (Huadian) today signed a sale and purchase agreement for BP to sell Huadian up to 1 million tonnes of liquefied natural gas (LNG) per year worth up to $10 billion over the next 20 years.

In an expansion of their ongoing global partnership, BP and China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) entered into a framework agreement on strategic cooperation covering potential shale gas exploration and production in the Sichuan Basin and future fuel retailing ventures in China and other international partnerships.

Russia supplied a record amount of crude oil to China in September, surpassing Saudi Arabia for the second time as the top seller to the Asian giant, customs data showed, boosted by demand from independent refiners.

The US is poised to sail warships close to China’s artificial islands in the South China Sea as a signal to Beijing that Washington does not recognise Chinese territorial claims over the area.