The year 2026 marks a pivotal year for Sinopec’s new round of strategic entrepreneurship and the 30th anniversary of the founding of Sinopec Star Petroleum Company. On June 8, 2026, Sinopec News published a special feature titled Sinopec Star Petroleum Company: Writing a New Chapter Through Second Entrepreneurship, Embarking on a New Journey at 30, comprehensively reviewing the company’s remarkable development achievements over three decades.
At its 30-year milestone, Sinopec Star Petroleum Company has evolved from a pioneering oil and gas exploration team into a leading green energy benchmark. Adhering to China’s new national energy security strategy and Sinopec’s green development philosophy, the company has blazed a distinctive, practice-oriented development path amid China’s low-carbon energy transition, always upholding the mission of serving the country through energy development.
Tracing back to the Ministry of Geology and Mineral Resources’ Petroleum and Marine Geology Bureau, the company launched large-scale oil and gas surveys across 76 sedimentary basins in China starting from the 1950s. It discovered commercial oil and gas flows in 35 basins and participated in landmark national projects, including the exploration and discovery of Daqing Oilfield, oil and gas research in the Pearl River Estuary Basin and East China Sea Shelf Basin, and the high-yield breakthrough of Shacan No.2 Well in northern Xinjiang. These efforts strongly supported the construction of China’s early petroleum industry.
In December 1996, the State Council approved the establishment of China Star Petroleum Co., Ltd. In February 2000, the company was fully incorporated into Sinopec Group. Under the leadership of Sinopec’s Party Committee, the company proactively pursued transformation and took geothermal energy development as its core breakthrough direction.
In 2006, Sinopec Star Petroleum Company established a joint venture with an Icelandic enterprise to accelerate its layout in the geothermal energy sector. In 2009, it signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Xiongxian County Government, pioneering the innovative "Xiongxian Model" for geothermal development, which has become a replicable industry benchmark for large-scale geothermal commercialization.
In 2013, Sinopec officially positioned the Star Petroleum Company as a professional clean energy enterprise focusing on geothermal development and utilization, kicking off its specialized, large-scale new energy development journey. In the new development era, the company has closely aligned with national strategies and Sinopec’s industrial layout, building a distinctive new energy system featuringgeothermal energy, green hydrogen, wind power and photovoltaic power.
Sinopec Star Petroleum Company has continuously enriched geothermal development models and application scenarios. It has built a total clean heating capacity exceeding 136 million square meters, serving over one million households across more than 70 counties and districts in 12 Chinese provinces and municipalities. The company ranks as China’s largest developer and operator of mid-to-deep geothermal energy resources.
The company constructed China’s first ten-thousand-ton-level green hydrogen project — the Xinjiang Kuqa 20,000 tons/year green hydrogen demonstration project. This landmark initiative achieved a historic zero breakthrough in China’s large-scale industrial green hydrogen application, leading the high-quality development of the national hydrogen energy industry.
Adapting to local conditions, the company develops customized wind and photovoltaic projects for diverse application scenarios, with its cumulative installed green power capacity exceeding 1.1 GW. It effectively supports Sinopec’s construction of a clean, low-carbon, safe and efficient modern energy system and empowers local green economic growth.
Sinopec Star Petroleum Company actively explores international market cooperation. It co-founded Sino-Egyptian Drilling Company with Egyptian enterprises, building a high-standard model of Sino-Egyptian energy cooperation and earning an outstanding reputation in the Middle East and African petroleum engineering markets.
In partnership with China Geo-Engineering Corporation, the company established China Geo Overseas Group, undertaking over 750 infrastructure projects including water supply, road and bridge, and industrial park construction across Belt and Road countries, with a total contract value exceeding 18 billion US dollars. It has maintained an AAA credit rating for overseas engineering contracting for 17 consecutive years.
Over 30 years of development, Sinopec Star Petroleum Company has adhered to self-reliant technological innovation, focused on core technology breakthroughs and industrial transformation, and built high-level innovation platforms to foster new quality productivity. It has established a three-tier scientific research system centered on the Star New Energy Technology Research Institute, supported by Sinopec’s internal research institutions and external universities and research institutes.
The company has formed an integrated full-industry-chain geothermal technology system covering resource exploration, development, evaluation and application. It has innovated two fundamental theories on geothermal system formation and thermal reservoir heat transfer, alongside six core technologies including geothermal exploration and evaluation, high-precision geothermal drilling, cascade utilization, geothermal reinjection, intelligent monitoring, and multi-energy complementary integration.
Centering on full-process green hydrogen refining technologies, the company leverages Sinopec’s key sci-tech projects and national key R&D programs for hydrogen energy. It has independently developed high-efficiency automatic control technologies, formed advanced standardized process packages for large-scale hydrogen production, and formulated industry standards for water electrolysis hydrogen production and hydrogen pipeline transportation, improving China’s hydrogen energy standard system.
Based on practical projects and new energy digital platforms, the company has built tailored photovoltaic technology systems for oilfield, refining and sales scenarios. It has also achieved breakthroughs in wind power technology integration, offshore wind measurement and wind-storage power grid integration technologies.
Sinopec Star Petroleum Company leads the national major science and technology project on deep thermal resource exploration and evaluation and serves as a pilot institution for the National Natural Science Foundation of China. Relying on high-level platforms including the National Key Laboratory of Deep Geothermal Energy and the Secretariat of the International Geothermal Association Standards Committee, it drives full-chain innovation from basic research to industrialization.
The company has accumulated 540 authorized patents, led the formulation of the first global geothermal industry standard issued by Chinese institutions, and compiled 26 national geothermal industry standards, 65 enterprise standards for geothermal business, and 42 enterprise standards for hydrogen and green power. It has won 16 provincial and ministerial-level scientific and technological awards.
In the 14th Five-Year Plan period, the company deepened institutional reforms comprehensively and has become Sinopec’s core platform for new energy investment, construction and operation at home and abroad. It operates with three core entities: Sinopec Star Petroleum Co., Ltd., Sinopec Star (Beijing) New Energy Co., Ltd., and Sinopec (Beijing) New Energy Technology Research Institute Co., Ltd.
The company optimizes organizational structures, streamlines management levels, cuts inefficient investments and outsourcing costs, and improves institutional systems and internal control processes to reduce management costs and enhance operational efficiency. It standardizes market development mechanisms, integrates core businesses of geothermal, green hydrogen and green power, and builds an integrated whole-process project management system to support high-quality project implementation.
It has optimized incentive and performance appraisal mechanisms, implemented efficiency-linked assessment and timely incentives, and fully mobilized the enthusiasm of employees for innovation and entrepreneurship. Adhering to lean management concepts, the company integrates refined operation into the whole chain of R&D, production, operation and brand building, realizing coordinated development of technological and management innovation.
The company’s Party Committee takes solid steps to integrate Party building into corporate governance, institutional reform, production and operation, and talent team construction, consolidating a sound political ecosystem and cohesive development momentum.
The First Party Congress in 2018 clarified the strategic direction of strengthening Party building and expanding clean energy business, promoting high-quality development of the "geothermal plus" green energy industry. The Second Party Congress in 2023 further defined the high-quality development roadmap, targeting industry-leading geothermal business, demonstrative green hydrogen development and supportive green power layout.
The company advances six key development projects including ideological cultivation, organizational consolidation, talent empowerment, cultural promotion, business integration and disciplinary supervision. It strengthens the construction of high-quality talent teams, enhances the brand influence of "Sinopec Star Geothermal Energy", and has been widely reported by mainstream central media. It also normalized long-term work on clean governance and comprehensive supervision to ensure steady and healthy corporate development.
Over the past 30 years, Sinopec Star Petroleum Company has transformed from a national oil exploration pioneer into a core new energy force, always fulfilling its national strategic responsibilities and driving industrial innovation through continuous reform.
As Sinopec fully advances its new round of second entrepreneurship and prioritizes new energy as a strategic emerging industry and core growth driver, Sinopec Star Petroleum Company will fully integrate into Sinopec’s new industrial pattern of "one foundation, two wings, three chains and four new sectors". Guided by high-quality Party building, the company will comprehensively deepen reform, launch six key strategic campaigns, upgrade its "thermal-hydro-wind-photovoltaic" new energy system, and build a complete industrial chain covering geothermal energy, green hydrogen, green power and carbon management.
Committed to building a technology-driven, intelligent comprehensive new energy service enterprise, Sinopec Star Petroleum Company will continue contributing to Sinopec’s goal of becoming a world-leading modern energy and chemical corporation, writing a new green development chapter by shifting its mission from "exploring oil for the nation" to "empowering the country with clean new energy".
