Oil giant Sinopec on Thursday signed China's second-largest gas purchase agreement, worth around $85 billion over 20 years by one estimate, in a deal that also gives it 15 percent of an Australian gas-export project. Sinopec will pay $1.5 billion for the stake in the Australia Pacific liquefied natural gas (LNG) project, completing a preliminary deal agreed in February with project developers ConocoPhillips and Australia's Origin Energy . ConocoPhillips and Origin announced the deal at a joint news conference overseen by Australian Resources Minister Martin Ferguson. "Australia very shortly become the second-largest exporter of LNG in the world and we have effectively now got a very important new industry in Queensland," Ferguson said, referring to the northern state where the project is to be built.
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