China Petroleum & Chemical Corp. (Sinopec) said Friday that it will issue bonds worth 50 billion yuan (6.7 billion US dollars) to finance a series of new projects.

The announcement came five months after Sinopec issued bonds worth 11.7 billion Hong Kong dollars to buy back two Hong Kong-listed companies -- Sinopec Beijing Yanhua Petrochemical Co. Ltd. and Sinopec Zhenhai Refining and Chemical Co. Ltd.

The latest issue would include 30 billion yuan in convertible bonds with warrants entitling the purchase of Sinopec shares and 20 billion yuan in bonds earmarked for laying a pipeline conveying natural gas from southwest China's Sichuan Province to Shanghai, said a company statement.

Some of the proceeds from the convertible bonds would also be injected into the pipeline project, while the rest would be channeled into three major ethylene projects in Tianjin, Zhejiang and Hubei and a capacity expansion project in east China's Shengli Oilfield.

The Sichuan-Shanghai pipeline project, worth 63 billion yuan, started in August this year and is expected to provide Shanghai with 1.9 billion cubic meters of natural gas a year on completion in 2010.

(Xinhua News Agency September 29, 2007)