Sinopec Plans Dollar Bond After Roadshow Through May 9

China Petrochemical Corp., known as Sinopec Group, is planning to sell a U.S. dollar bond after meetings with fixed-income investors concluding May 9, a person familiar with the proposed deal told Dow Jones Newswires on Thursday.

The state-owned firm, Asia's largest refiner by capacity, is due to meet investors in Hong Kong, Singapore, London, Los Angeles, Boston and New York, another person familiar with the matter said.

An early version of the offering memorandum indicated the deal would be composed of five-year, 10-year and 30-year tranches.

The bond would mark the latest offering in a recent surge of dollar-debt issuance from Asia, as companies take advantage of current super-low rates to fund future spending plans.

China's other two big state oil companies, China National Petroleum Corp. and Cnooc Ltd., both tapped the dollar-bond market in April, raising US$1.15 billion and US$2 billion respectively.

Dollar-denominated debt capital markets issuance out of Asia excluding Japan in the first four months of 2012 amounted to $56.4 billion, well above $39.5 billion in the same period last year, according to Dealogic data.

Last week alone, investment-grade corporate dollar bond issuance was the second largest on record at $5.16 billion as multi-billion-dollar deals from Indonesian energy heavyweight PT Pertamina and Cnooc were joined by several smaller offerings.

Bankers say the pipeline of deals remains strong. But they are also wary that the continuing euro zone sovereign debt crisis has the potential to derail issuance if conditions deteriorate.

China Petroleum & Chemical Corp. (SNP), or Sinopec Corp.--the listed unit of Sinopec Group--said last month its first-quarter net profit slipped 35% from a year earlier as refining losses outweighed higher oil prices and strong energy demand.

Over the past couple of months, Sinopec Group has completed deals to purchase a one-third stake in five of Devon Energy Corp.'s U.S. shale oil and gas fields for $2.44 billion, and to buy a 30% stake in the Brazilian unit of Portuguese oil company Galp Energia SA for $5.16 billion.

Sinopec has hired BOC International, Citigroup and HSBC as joint global coordinators, and the same three banks along with Barclays, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Mizuho Securities and UBS as joint lead managers and bookrunners for the Rule 144A/Reg S offering.

It plans to use the proceeds for the general corporate purposes of its overseas businesses and to fund overseas expansion, in particular oil and gas exploration, development, production and acquisition activities, the offering memorandum indicated.