OREANDA-NEWS. April 12, 2011. China National Offshore Oil Corporation (NYSE:CEO) (CNOOC), parent of CNOOC Ltd. (CEO.NYSE; 0883.HK), inked an agreement with Tianjin municipal government on jointly building a liquefied natural gas (OOTC:LNGLF) (LNG) terminal in the north China industrial center and major port city.

The two sides promised to strengthen cooperation on development of clean energy like LNG in the city.

CNOOC earlier was said to hold talks with Tianjin Port authority on construction of the receiving terminal of liquefied natural gas (LNG) in the port.

Yu Rumin, chairman of Tianjin Port Co., was quoted by media as saying that the project would include a LNG receiving wharf and a processing station with an annual handling capacity of 3 million metric tons (tonnes) of LNG imported from the Middle East.

China's LNG output hit 9 million metric tons (tones) in 2010, and is expected to reach 19 million tonnes in 2011, according to estimation made by the Research Institute of Economics and Technology of CNPC.

By the end of 2010, there had been three LNG terminals in operation in China with combined annual receiving capacity of 9.3 million tonnes. The receiving capacity of theses three LNG terminals is expected to expand to 28.3 tonnes per year.