China’s top refiner Sinopec is still in talks with natural gas suppliers including Iran and hopes for a breakthrough in the near future, a top company official said.

“We are seriously talking with relevant parties and hope for progress in the near future,” Liu Enxue, vice-president of Sinopec’s gas unit, said on the sidelines of the China Gas Summit conference.
Sinopec signed a preliminary deal worth as much as $100 billion with Iran in 2004 to import 10 million tonnes of liquefied natural gas a year for 25 years.
In return the firm was to take the lead to develop the huge Yadavaran oilfield.
But little progress has been made since as the parties differ widely in their estimates of the reserves of the field.
Sinopec is also negotiating with some Southeast Asian gas companies to secure LNG supplies to feed its new gas terminals under construction in southern China, Liu added.
He said the company is a late comer in the coastal LNG market compared with China National Offshore Oil Co, or CNOOC, which is operating a LNG project in Guangdong and preparing two others in Fujian and Shanghai.