Kuwait Oil Minister Sheik Ahmad Abdullah Al Sabah arrived here Monday, with his talks with Chinese government and company officials expected to focus on a planned joint venture refinery and petrochemicals complex, sources involved with the visit said.

The project, which will cost around $9 billion, has been under negotiation now for more than five years, but it isn't yet clear whether the present trip will result in a final go-ahead.

The 300,000-barrel-a-day refinery project now requires only formal Chinese government approval for construction to start, as a last procedural barrier, an environmental impact study, had now been approved, one source said.

Sheik Ahmad and officials from Kuwait Petroleum Corp. or KPC, and Kuwait Petroleum International, or KPI, will meet with Chinese Vice Premier Li Keqiang. The trip, which follows previous visits to China in April and May 2009, aims at reiterating Kuwait 's "strong support" for a planned joint refinery and petrochemical project in southern China , which awaits final Chinese government approval, Kuwait 's official Kuna news agency reported Monday.

If approved the complex is expected to come onstream as early as 2013 and will be the largest Sino-foreign joint venture in China energy sector, Kuna added.

The Kuwaiti minister is also scheduled later this week to fly to Guangdong Province , where the plant will be located, to discuss the project with local provincial leaders, according to Kuna.

Apart from the Kuwait project, Chinese companies are negotiating at least four other joint venture refinery projects, at a time the country's refining sector is straining at the seams to produce enough refined oil to meet domestic demand.

The Kuwait refinery, for which the Gulf state will supply all the crude, is a 50-50 joint venture between China Petroleum & Chemical Corp. (SNP), known as Sinopec, and Kuwait Petroleum Corp. Sinopec is China 's, and Asia 's biggest refiner in terms of capacity.

The project also involves building facilities capable of producing 1 million tons a year of ethylene.

In May, economic planning watchdog the National Development and Reform Commission gave its provisional green light to the complex, to be built in Zhanjiang city in southern China 's Guangdong province. Final approval was dependent on it getting environmental approval, and then the Chinese government's formal go-ahead.

The project was delayed in 2009 when the original site for the refinery, at the more heavily populated Nansha district in Guangdong , was rejected on environmental grounds.

The plan suffered another setback in December, when Royal Dutch Shell PLC (RDSA.LN) said it had ended talks to take a stake in the project, opening the way for other international oil companies to join.

It isn't clear if Kuwait still intends to bring in foreign partners.

Kuwait Petroleum International, which oversees KPC's international downstream marketing operations and represents Kuwait in talks with potential partners, has said it would finalize any international partnership only after the Chinese government grants final approval for the project.

China 's two main refiners, Sinopec and China National Petroleum Corp., which together have more than 4.5 million barrels a day of processing capacity in China , plan to boost crude oil processing to record highs in November to help deal with diesel shortages in several parts of the country.

In line with efforts to bolster the sector, seven weeks ago China National Petroleum Corp., or CNPC, and Russia 's OAO Rosneft (ROSN.RS) agreed to invest around $5 billion in a 260,000-barrel-a-day joint venture oil refinery in the Chinese city of Tianjin , with this supplied with crude from Russia and elsewhere.

Three other projects with foreign companies are on the drawing board. One involves CNPC and Petroleos de Venezuela SA, or PDVSA project in Southern China , while another is for a refinery to be built near Shanghai by Qatar Petroleum International and CNPC unit PetroChina (PTR).

Also, in September, South Korea 's SK Energy Co. (096770.SE) said it was talking to Cnooc Ltd. (0883.HK) about a plan to build a refinery in north eastern China .

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