Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), on Monday expressed his keenness on expanding and deepening energy cooperation with China, reports Xinhua.

The CEO made the comment in an e-mailed statement sent by ADNOC, after he met with several Chinese oil, gas, refining and petrochemical industry leaders during his visit to China’s capital Beijing this week.

Jaber visited Beijing as part of an effort “to expand and deepen business and economic relations with one of the United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) largest trading partners,” according to the statement.

Energy cooperation is an important aspect of the UAE’s relations with China, a major growing market for ADNOC’s crude, refined products and petrochemicals, the statement said.

ADNOC believes that there are mutually beneficial partnership and co-investment opportunities with China across the company’s upstream and downstream value chains, it added.

In the oil sector, upstream describes the business of discovering, exploring and drilling oil fields, while downstream stands for all parts of the petroleum industry that deal with the refinery of oil or the immediate usage of oil in various industries like petrochemicals.

ADNOC is also ready to work with existing and potential new partners to meet the growing demand for energy and petrochemical products in China, said Jaber.

Jaber met with senior executives from the Wanhua Chemical Group, one of the world’s largest producers of methylene diphenyl diisocyanate, China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), a major state-owned Chinese oil and gas corporation, and China National Offshore Oil Corporation, China’s largest producer of offshore crude oil and natural gas.

He also met with representatives from the China Development Bank and deputy chief of the National Development and Reform Commission.