CHINA Petroleum and Chemical Corporation, also known as Sinopec, China's largest integrated energy and chemical group, celebrated in Singapore yesterday the opening of its first lubricant plant outside China.

The Sinopec Lubricant (Singapore) Pte Ltd covers an area of 242,811 square meters.

The opening of the Singapore plant marks a major milestone for Sinopec and is key to its global expansion, starting with Asia. Besides functioning as its Asia Pacific regional hub, the Singapore plant will also be an important production, service and logistics center, enabling Sinopec to better serve the needs of its customers in Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand, says the company's press release.

The plant has an initial production capacity of 100,000 tons of lubricant per year and will produce high-end products to meet the increasing regional demand for high-grade lubricant and grease.

The general manager of Sinopec Lubricant (Singapore) Pte Ltd, Pei Wenjun, officially opened the Singapore plant, saying that the facility uses one of the world's leading lubricant production equipment and processing technology, 90 percent of which are proprietary to Sinopec.

"The completion of the Singapore plant will further increase our visibility and influence around the world, besides helping to greatly enhance the international competitiveness of other Chinese lubricant brand in general," said Pei.

Last year, Sinopec was ranked No.5 on Fortune Magazine's global top 500 companies.