China's private refiners hire new executives for Singapore desks

SINGAPORE, Aug 26 (Reuters): Private Chinese oil refiner and petrochemical manufacturers Hengli Petrochemical Corp and Rongsheng Petrochemical Corp have each hired a new executive for its Singapore trading desk, company officials said on Wednesday.

Hengli Petrochemical (Singapore) Pte Ltd, the trading unit for Hengli Petrochemical, hired James Zhang, formerly a commodities trading manager at ICBC Standard Bank, as its vice president in charge of finances, a company spokesman said.

Zhang started early this month, the spokesman said.

Separately, Zhu Yanyu, previously a veteran oil products trading manager at state-owned oil and gas company PetroChina, started in June at Rongsheng Petrochemical (Singapore) Pte Ltd as a deputy general manager in charge of refined products trading, said two company officials.

The Singapore operation is the international trading unit for Rongsheng Petrochemical Corp, which is a key stakeholder in Zhejiang Petrochemical Corp (ZPC), one of China's largest private refiners which operates a 400,000 barrels per day refinery in east China's Zhoushan.

ZPC became the first private Chinese refiner to win Chinese government quotas to export low-sulphur marine fuel in April, and in July the firm was granted a license to export other refined products.