BEIJING -(Dow Jones)- State-owned China National Offshore Oil Corp. expects a major build up in its liquefied natural gas operations this year, including getting approval to build three new import terminals and signing at least three long-term LNG import deals, its top executive said Sunday.

The news comes as latest evidence of a huge ramp up in China's gas imports.

Late in 2009 it started bringing in gas from Central Asia's Turkmenistan via a pipeline which will supply 5 million tons this year, it is building a gas pipeline from Myanmar, and it is in advanced negotiations with Russia to build at least one more pipeline to provide it with eastern Siberian gas.

Separately, LNG terminals are mushrooming around its coast. Cnooc already has three and is building a fourth, wile rivals China National Petroleum Corp. and China Petroleum & Chemical Corp. (SNP), known as Sinopec, are together building another three.

Cnooc president Fu Chengyu said he expects that China's economic planning agency, the National Reform and Development Commission, will approve the company's three new LNG terminals later this year, but didn't give the locations or say who the company was talking to about new gas supplies. He was speaking in the margins of the National People's Congress meetings.

Cnooc's existing terminals are in Shanghai, and in Fujian and Guangdong provinces. The fourth, in Zhejiang province, is due to be ready in 2012 with a first phase receiving capacity of three million metric tons.

Last year, Cnooc signed a long-term deal with Qatar Gas Operating Co. for three million tons of LNG annually starting from 2013.

Cnooc and Qatargas are also mulling additional Qatari LNG supply of two million tons a year, which would bring Qatargas' overall LNG supply to Cnooc to seven million tons a year and enhance supplies already arriving from, or commissioned from Indonesia and Australia.

China's 2010 LNG imports will grow around 8.5% to some six million tons, far slower than the 66% growth seen in 2009, as only a small amount of extra terminal capacity will be available this year, according to a CNPC study published in February.

This will account for around 9% of China's overall 2010 natural gas supply.

Large rises in LNG imports are expected further out, as new facilities open.

Wan Xu contributed to this article; Dow Jones Newswires; 8610-84007799; wan.xu@dowjones.com

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