OPEC countries, which produce 40 per cent of the world's oil, are stepping up efforts to secure their market share in China, as the group competes with Russia to supply the world's fastest-growing energy market.

Sheikh Ahmad Fahd al-Sabah, president of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, will lead the group's first talks with China today as members including Saudi Arabia and Kuwait plan investments in Chinese refinery projects worth more than US$8 billion to increase their share of China's fuel market.

Oil prices have tripled since 2001 as the Chinese economy expanded at more than 9 per cent a year, straining global supply. Russia, China's largest non-OPEC supplier, may build a pipeline to feed Siberian oil to China and will raise rail shipments 50 per cent next year. Saudi Arabia has used oil refinery investments to ensure sales in Japan and South Korea.

"The relationship between China and OPEC is still weak," said A.F. Alhajji, oil economist and associate professor at Ohio Northern University. "OPEC members should invest more in China and circulate some of the petrodollars that they earned in recent years."

China, the world's second-largest energy market, imported about 800,000 barrels a day from Saudi Arabia, Iran and Indonesia, its largest OPEC suppliers, according to Beijing-based Customs General Administration. Russia, Angola, Oman and Sudan are the biggest non- OPEC exporters to the country. China will need to import more than 3 million barrels a day next year.

Saudi Aramco, the world's largest oil company by production, agreed in 2001 to expand a refinery in Fujian Province jointly owned with China Petroleum & Chemical Corp, or Sinopec, and Exxon Mobil Corp at a cost of US$3.5 billion. Aramco may also build a second joint venture plant with Sinopec in the northern city of Qingdao.

"We share the view with most key energy consultants that major capital investment in the sector will be needed to handle expected demand," Aramco's refining head Khalid al-Buainain said at the beginning of the month. The company also plans refinery investments in Saudi Arabia, the US and South Korea.

Kuwait and China have agreed to develop a refinery complex near Guangzhou in the south of the country with the capacity to produce between 200,000 and 400,000 barrels a day of gasoline and other fuels, Sheikh Ahmad, who is also Kuwait's Oil Minister, said in Kuwait City last Monday. That project, which would use Kuwait oil supplies, may cost as much as US$5 billion, he said.

"China should allow OPEC members to invest in downstream operations and refineries within China," Ohio Northern's Alhajji said. "China has to make structural changes to attract such investment. This includes the removal of price controls on all petroleum products."

The National Development and Reform Commission, China's top economic planning agency, limits fuel price fluctuations to 8 per cent from levels it sets to curb inflation and manufacturing costs. It hasn't raised fuel prices in step with crude oil costs.

"We want to know how we can help meet China's energy needs and understand from them what energy policies they plan to pursue," Adnan Shihab-Eldin, OPEC's acting secretary general, said last Monday in Kuwait City.

OPEC's members are Saudi Arabia, Iran, Venezuela, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Iraq, Nigeria, Libya, Indonesia, Algeria and Qatar.