Chinese private energy and VLCC shipping player Landbridge Group is joining state-owned Beijing Energy Group in an LNG regasification terminal planned at Rizhao.
The scale of the joint investment by the private-state joint venture is CNY 6.7bn ($974m).
Sources close to the deal tell TradeWinds there is no firm completion date for the terminal yet.
Gas supplies that Landbridge already controls will be diverted from the Australian domestic market to China to supply the planned terminal, they add.
But in a response to TradeWinds, the company was unwilling to confirm the source of the gas.
"The LNG imported by the Landbridge Group will be from overseas resources, possibly Australia," said a company spokesman.
The co-operation agreement governing construction of the 5 million tonnes per annum facility was signed last Friday in Rizhao, Landbridge's home base of Rizhao in Shandong province.
Beijing Energy Group Communist Party secretary and chairman Jiang Fan and Landbridge chairman and president Ye Cheng inked the agreement amid a host of top local government officials and Party cadres, as well as top management of the Beijing Energy and Landbridge Groups.
The project brings together Landbridge as upstream partner with its access to Australian gas and Beijing Energy Group as downstream partner with its large domestic distribution network.
Landbridge has been owner since 2014 of Australian LNG supplier Westside Corp through its subsidiary Landbridge Energy Australia, and since 2015 of Darwin Port in Australia's Northern Territory.
In addition to the gas receiving terminal project, the agreement pledges co-operation in joint development of foreign resources, international trading in oil and gas, and infrastructure projects at home and abroad.
The deal is touted as a link in Chinese President Xi Jinping's trademark Belt and Road Initiative.
In addition to its domestic energy and terminal operations and crude oil shipowning, Landbridge owns a portfolio of resource and import-related assets ranging from Australia and New Zealand to Panama.
Today's announcement of the planned Rizhao terminal follows the unveiling of plans in May for a terminal project proposed by Beijing Energy Group at the port of Caofeidian at Tangshan in Hebei province.
