PetroChina Company Limited ("PetroChina"), China National Petroleum Corporation ("CNPC") and Hutchison Whampoa Limited announced today the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding to jointly build and operate the first e-commerce B2B portal focusing specifically on the requirements of the oil and gas industry in China. In its first phase, the portal will establish a comprehensive e-marketplace for all oil and gas products and related services in China.

The portal will provide trading, content, logistics, credit and other value-added services to oil and gas industry participants in China. PetroChina, which is China's largest oil and gas listed company with a procurement volume of tens of billions of renminbi, is committed to using the portal for a significant amount of its annual procurement. The use of the e-marketplace offered by the portal will enable PetroChina to automate its business processes, reduce costs and will bring about significant cost efficiencies from process efficiency and information transparency in addition to an improved supply chain and inventory management.

As one of Asia's leading value-creating clicks-and-mortar conglomerates, Hutchison Whampoa will bring to the partnership its international expertise in e-frastructure and B2B initiatives.

In addition to PetroChina, CNPC and Hutchison Whampoa, which will have 35 percent, 25 percent and 25 percent of the new venture respectively, the other founding partners of the Oil and Gas portal will be China Construction Bank (3 percent), BOCI Investment Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of BOC International Holdings Ltd (3 percent) and Goldman Sachs (Asia) L.L.C. (3 percent). The remaining six percent equity interest will be allocated to the management of the new venture.

China Construction Bank and Bank of China will, among other Chinese banks, work with the portal to develop online financing, payment and settlement services. Goldman Sachs (Asia) L.L.C. and BOCI Asia Limited are the joint financial advisors to the project.

The portal will employ the best-in-class technology and ensure an efficient, scalable and multilingual platform.

"This is a classic example of Old Economy and New Economy converging," said Mr Huang Yan, President and CEO of PetroChina. "We recognize that the oil and gas industry will, like any other, be transformed by the e-commerce revolution and we are determined to be at the forefront of this change.

"In addition, we are keen to exploit the cost efficiencies this initiative represents as part of our on-going cost efficiency program," he said.

"We are delighted to have Hutchison Whampoa as a partner, which is widely regarded as a leader in Asia's New Economy, having aggressively embraced a broad range of Internet initiatives," Mr Huang said. "Together with the other partners in this venture, I believe we will move swiftly towards establishing a world-class B2B portal."

"Our involvement in this important e-commerce project complements our existing B2B initiatives in transport and logistics and we are excited about bringing to this partnership our knowledge in the access, enablement and e-commerce platform areas, "said Mr Canning Fok, Group Managing Director of Hutchison Whampoa.

Having signed a Memorandum of Understanding, the partners will focus on completing their detailed business plan based upon PetroChina's procurement and product distribution needs and processes.

The next stage of development will be to select and work with a best of class technology provider to provide the most flexible and scalable technology platform for the portal.

The partners will also be actively soliciting the participation of the suppliers and buyers of oil and gas products and services in the PRC. Collaboration and high transaction volume is the number one priority for the portal.

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Additional information on the founding members can be found at the following websites:

PETROCHINA
http://www.petrochina.com.cn

CNPC
http://www.cnpc.com.cn

HUTCHISON WHAMPOA
http://www.hutchison-whampoa.com

BOC INTERNATIONAL HOLDINGS LTD
http://www.bankofchina.com

CHINA CONSTRUCTION BANK
http://www.ccb.com.cn

GOLDMAN SACHS
http://www.gs.com

For further information, please contact:
Hill & Knowlton Asia Limited
Mr Vincent Wong       Ms Pamela Mak
Tel: (852) 2576 6297       2576 6261
Fax: (852) 2576 3551