OREANDA-NEWS. August 29, 2013. China National Chemical Corp., the country’s largest chemical producer, will open a Singapore office next month initially to trade crude and fuel oil, said an official.

The company known as ChemChina plans to have about 10 employees in the office, said the official, who asked not to be named because the information isn’t public. It has hired three traders from state-owned China ZhenHua Oil Co.

Zhou Chuanrong, the Beijing-based spokesman for ChemChina, didn’t reply to two calls to his office.

ChemChina started importing crude earlier this year to supply its smaller refineries under the country’s first allowance for processing imported crude at so-called teapot plants. ChemChina’s annual oil-processing capacity is about 25 million metric tons a year, or about 500,000 barrels a day, according to the company’s website.