China's top oil refiner China Petroleum and Chemical Corp's (Sinopec), today said that it is acquiring the Argentinean subsidiary of the fourth-largest US oil and gas company Occidental Petroleum Corp, for $2.45 billion.

Beijing-based Sinopec said in a statement that it is acquiring all the assets of Occidental Argentina, which includes Occidental Argentina Exploration & Production Inc and certain affiliates.

The acquisition comes after Sinopec last month teamed up with Bridas Energy Holdings to acquire British oil giant BP's 60 per cent stake in Argentina's second-largest oil producer, Pan American Energy, for $7.06 billion. 

The purchase of BP's stake in Pan American Energy came after London-based oil company had in July 2010 rejected Sinopec's offer, which was confirmed by Sinopec's senior vice president Zhang Jianhua, who said in an interview in Shanghai at that time, "We've talked to BP on some good assets, but they won't sell… We aren't in any talks with BP right now." (See: BP rejects Sinopec's offer to buy its assets)

Occidental Argentina holds interest in 23 production and exploration concessions in Santa Cruz, Mendoza and Chubut provinces in Argentina having combined proven and probable reserves of 393 million barrels of oil.

The fields produced over 51,000 barrels of oil per day last year.

Sinopec has gone on a shopping spree this and had acquired a 40-per cent stake in the Brazilian assets of Spanish oil company Repsol YPF SA in October for $7.1 billion, while in April, it acquired ConocoPhillips 9.03-per cent stake in Syncrude Canada for $4.65.

Last week, it acquired an 18-per cent stake in Chevron's $8-billion Gendalo-Gehem deep water natural gas project in Indonesia for $680 million, and is planning to bid for 42 offshore oilfields off the west central African country Gabon.

Sinopec made its largest overseas acquisition in June 2009, when it acquired Geneva-based oil and gas producer Addax Petroleum for $7.2 billion.

China, which is currently the third-biggest importer of oil after replacing Japan as the second-largest oil consumer in 2003, is compelled to secure overseas energy assets to sustain its rapid economic development in the future.

Since 1993, China has become an oil importing country and the decreasing domestic oil production has since driven its three big state-owned oil companies into acquiring energy in Latin and North America, Africa, Middle East and Eastern Europe.

According to the International Energy Agency, China's daily oil consumption will reach 9.2 million barrels by 2015. The International Energy Agency had said in June that the three state owned oil companies, China National Petroleum Corp., Sinopec and Cnooc had spent around $29 billion world-wide to acquire oil and gas assets from January 2009 to April 2010.

Chinese oil majors have spent more than $15 billion this year in acquisitions of energy assets in South America alone.