OREANDA-NEWS. October 30, 2012. In the first major move by a Chinese state company into European oil storage, Sinopec is buying half of tank firm Vesta Terminals through a joint venture with Swiss-based trader Mercuria Energy.

Sinopec Kantons Holdings, a unit of state-owned Sinopec, will pay 128.6 million euros (USD166.76 million) for a 50 per cent stake in Vesta Terminals, the Chinese company told the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in a statement.

Based on the details in the stock exchange statement, which shows net debt of 82.8 million euros, the deal gives Vesta Terminals an enterprise value of 340 million euros.

The deal will give Sinopec Kantons access to Vesta Terminals' 10 million barrels of oil products storage in Tallinn in Estonia, the Dutch port of Vlissingen and Antwerp in Belgium, Mercuria said in a statement sent to Reuters.

"It is the first major move by a Chinese state-owned enterprise into the European oil storage market," Paul Chivers, Mercuria's Group Head of Corporate Development, told Reuters.

"We believe this deal offers us the best potential for future expansion," Chivers said by telephone from Beijing where the deal was signed.

Chinese oil companies are increasingly active in Western markets, expanding into crude and oil products trading and buying strategic infrastructure. "Chinese companies are expanding everywhere," said Amrita Sen, chief oil analyst at consultancy Energy Aspects in London, adding Sinopec's move fitted a strategic aim of acquiring a variety of key assets in major energy markets.

"They are picking up all sorts of assets: oilfields, terminals, refining," she said.

Sinopec subsidiary Unipec is already a dominant player in the West African crude oil market and Petrochina , the listed arm of China's biggest oil producer, state-controlled China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC), is also expanding quickly in Europe.