CHINA Petrochemical Corp will pay US$3.54 billion for a 30 percent stake in the Brazilian unit of Portuguese oil company Galp Energia SGPS SA in its latest move to acquire energy assets in Latin America.

China's second-largest oil producer, also known as Sinopec Group, last year paid US$7.1 billion for a 40 percent stake in Spanish oil major Repsol YPF's Brazilian unit.

Sinopec yesterday said the Galp deal, its second in Brazil, will give it 21,300 barrels of oil equivalent per day of output in 2015. The output will peak at 112,500 barrels in 2024. For comparison, Sinopec's flagship listed unit Sinopec Corp produced about 1.11 million barrels per day in the first nine months of this year.

The deal sees Sinopec subscribing for new shares to be issued by Galp and assume shareholder loans.

"Taking into consideration this investment and projected future capital expenditure, the total cash payout amounts to approximately US$5.18 billion at closing," Sinopec said in a statement.

The transaction needs approval from the Chinese government.

Galp's main assets in Brazil include four deep-water blocks in the Santos Basin. The offshore basin is the site of several recently discovered major oil fields.

Sinopec also signed a deal in December to purchase United States-based Occidental Petroleum Corp's Argentine unit for US$2.45 billion.

But BP's US$7.1 billion deal to sell a stake in an Argentine oil producer to a joint venture partly owned by CNOOC Ltd, China's third-largest oil firm, fell through last week after Argentina's president ordered oil firms to repatriate future export revenue.