China National Aviation Fuel Corp. (CNAF), the country's leading jet fuel provider, said it is expected to receive long-term jet fuel supplies from Russia's second largest oil producer Rosneft.

 

The two companies will also cooperate in fields associated with jet fuel business in China, Russia and other countries, according to a recently signed letter of intent on strategic cooperation.

 

Neither company disclosed when the supplies and cooperation would begin.

 

The Russian state oil company will mainly use its refineries in east Russia in order to save on transportation costs, said Andrey Gromadin, oil and gas analyst at Russia's MDM Bank.

 

The only jet fuel producer Rosneft has in the Far East region is its Komsomolsk Refinery.

 

Since 1999, Rosneft has been improving the refinery's production capacity, aiming to raise its output to seven million tons a year.

 

As the Komsomolsk Refinery's output increases, CNAF is expected to purchase fuel from it.

 

CNAF, the world's seventh largest jet fuel supplier, sold 11.4 million tons of the fuel to Chinese and foreign airline companies last year and is seeking more jet fuel supplies.

 

Currently one third of the company's fuel is supplied by its Singaporean subsidiary, China Aviation Oil (Singapore) Corp, while the remainder comes from two Chinese oil giants - China National Petroleum Corp. (PetroChina) and China Petroleum and Chemical Corp. (Sinopec).

 

(Xinhua News Agency April 6, 2007)