Society

China Petrochemical Group (Sinopec), China's largest oil refiner, said Friday it has agreed to purchase US Occidental Petroleum Corp's Argentinean subsidiary for $2.45 billion.

Sinopec said in a statement Friday the acquisition includes all assets of Occidental Argentina.

Occidental Argentina has gross proven and probable reserves of 393 million barrels of oil equivalent and an interest in 23 production and exploration concessions in Argentina, 19 of which the company operates, said the statement.

Occidental Argentina's production from 22 producing concessions totaled more than 51,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day last year.

The purchase is Sinopec's first investment in the Argentina's oil and gas sector. The move, another step in Sinopec's internationalization, aims to secure Chinese oil supplies, according to the statement.

Is China’s burgeoning movie industry about to enter the age of video game-as-film concept a la “Laura Croft: Tomb Raider”?

That possibility has taken a distinct step forward with the announcement yesterday that Huayi Brothers Media Corporation, China’s leading film and TV production house, is joining forces with Chinese online game developer Giant Interactive Group Inc.

The companies are in the process of forming a joint venture, Beijing Huayi Giant Information Technology Co., Ltd, with the aim developing 3D online games, according to a statement posted on Giant Interactive’s website (in Chinese). The statement says Huayi Brothers will eventually invest 70 million yuan, or roughly $10.5 million, in the new company for a 51% stake.

The joint venture company is already developing new content for Giant’s 3D online role playing game King of Kings III and has plans to develop new 3D games based on Huayi’s films and TV dramas in the second half of 2011, the statement said.

China's automobile sales rose 26.9% in November from a year earlier, a Chinese industry group said, but growth is expected to slow sharply next year as the government phases out some incentives and considers measures to curb worsening traffic congestion.

Auto sales in November rose to 1.697 million vehicles, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers said Thursday, as consumers rushed to take advantage of purchase incentives before they expire at the end of the year. Total industry sales are on track to rise about 32% for the full year to 18 million vehicles, the semi-official association said.

But Xiong Chuanlin, vice secretary of the association, said growth will likely slow to about 10% in 2011, with auto sales totaling approximately 20 million vehicles. That echoes other recent predictions from industry executives.

Joe Hinrichs, head of Asian-Pacific and African operations for Ford Motor Co., said in November that he expects China's overall vehicle sales to total "a little bit shy of 18 million" vehicles this year, and that he expects sales to increase at a much slower rate of about 10% next year. In October, Kevin Wale, head of operations in China for General Motors Co., gave a slightly more conservative estimate, saying he expects auto sales in China to reach 19 million vehicles next year.

Call it a Peace Prize with Chinese characteristics.

With only a few days to go until the ceremony marking jailed Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo’s Nobel Peace Prize, a Chinese NGO has announced the winner of the Confucius Prize, which it describes in a statement as “the Peace Prize reconstructed according to Oriental thought.”

The announcement follows a November 16 editorial (in Chinese) in the Global Times, a tabloid affiliated with Communist Party mouthpiece People’s Daily, calling for the establishment of a Confucius Prize as a way for “the Chinese to declare China’s views on peace and human rights to the world.”