(Yicai) May 30 -- State-owned energy giant China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation, better known as Sinopec, has established China's largest venture capital fund focusing on hydrogen energy.

With an initial size of CNY5 billion (USD695.6 million), the fund will be managed by Sinopec Private Equity Fund Management, Yicai learned from Sinopec yesterday. It will invest in the whole hydrogen energy industrial chain, from production to storage, transportation, and applications, and focus on the incubation of key materials, core equipment, and original technologies with high growth potential.

Two investment institutions under the Shandong provincial government -- Shandong New Growth Drivers Fund Management and Yangtai Guofeng Investment Holdings Group -- also invested in the fund.

The fund has already established a post-investment mechanism that taps into the potential cooperation between Sinopec and the companies it invests in and provides application scenarios for their technologies and products, the Beijing-based firm said.

In 2020, Sinopec set a goal of becoming China's largest hydrogen energy company. Since then, it has built 11 hydrogen supply centers for fuel cells and 144 hydrogen refueling stations, growing into the world's largest operator of hydrogen refueling facilities.

Moreover, Sinopec has made several investments in the Chinese hydrogen energy industry chain, including in hydrogen storage and transportation equipment maker Guofu Hydrogen Energy Equipment and fuel cell developer Refire Group, which have gone public on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

Besides hydrogen energy, Sinopec is also investing in other new energy fields. Earlier this month, it invested USD500 million in the secondary listing in Hong Kong of Chinese power battery giant Contemporary Amperex Technology. The two companies have agreed to cooperate on jointly building 10,000 electric vehicle battery swap stations.

Editors: Dou Shicong, Futura Costaglione