Oil chief knows the drill for M&As

Also, mergers and acquisitions in the oil industry are different from those in manufacturing. In some ways, they are less risky. In the oil business, the output, means of production and value of a company stay the same when ownership changes.

No matter how big the risk is, if you are aware of it, it is no longer a risk, he repeats. "The biggest problem is when you cannot see the risk."

According to a Chinese saying, "those who do not have a strategy at heart have plenty of ideas, and that is the biggest risk", he says.

Fu has been in the oil business for more than 30 years, starting as an oil field worker in Northeast China, but one thing has never changed, he says, and that is his confidence in Chinese companies to compete internationally.

He first went to the US in 1984, and was shocked at the differences between China and the US. He realized that there were many things to learn if he and his country were to catch up.

After working with Americans for more than 10 years, he began to notice that the Western way had weaknesses and the Chinese one had advantages.

In the oil business in China, for example, people are patriotic and willing to sacrifice personal benefit for a bigger goal, whereas this kind of devotion is absent in Western companies.

This interest in the greater good also shapes Fu's business strategy. A company in China should serve the development strategy of the whole country, he says, if it is to succeed in the future.

The 18th Party congress this month called for building a "beautiful China", and that means a company like Sinopec must make tackling environmental problems a priority. These problems, he says, cannot be solved from the outside.

Fu finds the extent of waste in China daunting. Energy is used inefficiently. In relation to GDP, the amount of energy used in China is three times that of the US, four times that used in Europe, and five times of Japan.

"Our fast economic growth has also resulted in an acceleration of global resource pressures," Fu says. "We have to be, we are determined to be, part of the solution to these problems."

diaoying@chinadaily.com.cn