Global energy giant BP announced Thursday that it is investing 22 million U.S. dollars in building an industrial lubricant blending plant in East China's Jiangsu Province.

The plant, to be completed at the end of this year, will be BP's largest industrial lubricant facility in China.

At the ground-breaking ceremony in Taicang city, Andrew Rodgers, director of BP Industrial Lubricants Supply Chain, said the investment was the most important move by BP's industrial lubricant sector this year and would consolidate BP's lubricant businesses in China.

The new plant will have a production capacity of 45 million liters initially. By 2010, its capacity will have expanded to 70 million liters.

Rodgers said the project was an integral part of BP industrial lubricants' growth strategy for China. The company had already started investing in building a robust organization of skilled personnel, management and customer services.

BP's lubricants business in China is built on both the Castrol and BP brands as BP purchased Castrol, the world's biggest supplier of metalworking fluids and lubricants, in 2000.

BP has a distribution presence of industrial lubricants, consumer lubricants and marine lubricants in 25 provinces in China.

BP's lubricant product supply is supported by 80 million-liter capacity blending plant in South China's Guangdong Province and a chain of contracted toll blenders within China, as well as imports from BP plants around the Asia-Pacific area, Europe and America.

As one of the world's largest oil, gas and petrochemical companies with operations in over 100 countries, BP has been operating in China since the early 1970s.

Its activities in China include the production and import of natural gas, supply of aviation fuel, import and marketing of liquefied petroleum gas, retail fuel outlets, lubricants blending and sales, petrochemical manufacturing and solar power facilities.

With the rapid development of China's economy, BP stepped up its expansion in China. Last year saw BP establish an acetic acid joint venture with China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation (Sinopec) in Nanjing, capital of Jiangsu, and inject 44 million U.S. dollars for the strategic restructuring of China Aviation Oil (Singapore) (CAO).

Source: Xinhua