REFILE-CNPC to ink fuel deal with Malaysian refinery -media

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BEIJING, July 15 (Reuters) - China's top oil firm CNPC is set to sign a multibillion-dollar, 20-year deal to buy oil products from what is expected to be Malaysia's largest refinery, the South China Morning Post reported on Wednesday, citing sources.

The deal, if it materialises, would solidify CNPC's overseas expansion in the downstream oil sector after PetroChina(0857.HK) (601857.SS), CNPC's listed arm, got approval from Beijing last month to buy a stake in Nippon Oil's (5001.T) Osaka refinery and acquired a 45.5 percent stake in Singapore Petroleum Co for $1.02 billion in May.

China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) is also in talks to buy a stake in the planned $10 billion refinery in Kedah in northwest Malaysia, the Hong Kong-based English newspaper said.

A CNPC spokesman told Reuters he had no information on the deal, and another official with the firm's foreign affairs department denied knowledge of it.

CNPC signed a memorandum of understanding in late 2007 to buy all of the Malaysian refinery's output of oil products, including gasoline, diesel and kerosene.

Construction of the refinery, which has planned capacity of 350,000 barrels per day (bpd) and is being developed by Malaysia's private firm Merapoh, is set to begin later this year, with the plant becoming operational in 2013. (Reporting by Jim Bai and Chen Aizhu; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)