China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation (Sinopec), China's largest integrated energy and chemical group, celebrated the opening of its first lubricant plant outside China in Singapore on Thursday.

Sinopec Lubricant (Singapore) Pte Ltd, located at Tuas in the southwestern tip of Singapore, covers an area of 242,811 square meters. Its opening marks a major milestone for Sinopec and is key to its global expansion, starting with Asia.

Besides functioning as Sinopec's Asia-Pacific regional hub, the Singapore plant will also be an important production, service and logistics center, enabling Sinopec to better serve the needs of its customers in Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand, says the company's press release.

The plant has an initial production capacity of 100,000 tons of lubricant per year and will produce high-end products to meet the increasing regional demand for high-grade lubricant and grease.

The Singapore plant was officially opened by its general manager Pei Wenjun, who said the plant uses some of the world's leading lubricant production equipment and processing technology, 90 percent of which is proprietary to Sinopec.

Sinopec's core businesses are in oil and gas exploration and production, extraction, pipeline transmission and marketing; oil refining; and production, marketing, storage and transportation of petrochemicals, chemical fibers, chemical fertilizers and other chemical products.

Last year, Sinopec was ranked No.5 among Fortune magazine's Fortune 500 list of top global companies, with its revenue reaching $375 billion. After its revenue increased to $428 billion, it jumped up to No.4 on the magazine's list for this year, which was released Monday.