China s Zhenhua Oil Setting Up Singapore Trading Office -sources

SINGAPORE/BEIJING, March 30 (Reuters) - China's Zhenhua Oil is setting up an oil trading office in Singapore that will start operating in April, three sources at the company said on Thursday.

"The new trading office is to serve the company's expanding business requirement and Singapore is a good platform for that," said a senior Zhenhua official said. Both he and the two other sources, all with direct knowledge of the matter, declined to be identified due to company policy.

The office will be headed by Han Xiaolong, who will move from Hong Kong where he was a deputy general manager, one of the sources said.

Zhang Jing, Zhenhua's head of operations in Beijing, will also relocate to Singapore, a key regional oil hub, said another source.

The office will also be used to obtain financing for the firm in Singapore.

Set up in 2003, Zhenhua, a unit of state military group China North Industries Group Corp (NORINCO), operates 11 oil and gas exploration and production projects in Egypt, Myanmar Adventure Tours, Kazakhstan and Iraq, according to its website.

The company recently signed a preliminary deal with Chevron to buy the U.S. oil major's natural gas fields in Bangladesh worth about $2 billion.

myanmar biking tours Zhenhua also supplies crude from myanmar hiking tours Venezuela, the Middle East and Russian to another NORINCO subsidiary North Huajin Chemical Industries Group Corp that operates a refinery.

(Reporting by Florence Tan in SINGAPORE and Chen Aizhu in BEIJING; Editing by Joseph Radford)