China's CIC to fund Sinopec oil search abroad-paper

BEIJING, Dec 21 (Reuters) - China Investment Corp, the country's sovereign wealth fund, is in talks with China Petroleum & Chemical Corp, or Sinopec, to provide funding to help it explore for oil overseas, the China Business News reported on Friday.

Sinopec (SNP.N) (0386.HK) (600028.SS), China's second-largest oil and gas producer, is listed in Shanghai, Hong Kong and New York. The company could not be immediately reached for comment.

The paper did not say what form the injection of funds would take. One possibility is for CIC and Sinopec's parent to jointly invest in overseas exploration projects and to sell the assets to the listed company, the paper quoted unidentified sources as saying.

The State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) has been keen for CIC to support the overseas expansion of the 150 or so large firms under its control and has now reached agreement with the fund to do that, the paper said.

CIC identified Sinopec as the first candidate for financial support after several rounds of talks with the refiner, the newspaper added.

CIC has initially been entrusted with $200 billion to manage, of which one-third is earmarked for international investments.

The fund said this week it was injecting $5 billion into U.S. investment bank Morgan Stanley (MS.N). (Reporting by Langi Chiang; Editing by Alan Wheatley and Edmund Klamann)