In a few weeks’ time, two oil rigs off the coast of Brazil will move smoothly into production, pumping thousands of barrels of oil a day out of the Peregrino oilfield in the Campos basin. They would be unremarkable if it were not for the story that lies behind the field and its investors. Owned by Statoil of Norway, another investor in the project is Sinochem, a Chinese state-owned energy and trading group, which won a bid for 40 per cent of the field in one of the most hotly contested bidding rounds in the industry last year.

Sinochem paid $3.1bn for that stake, sealing the deal last June. It is not unusual for Chinese oil companies to make big acquisitions these days – last year they spent more than $30bn on overseas mergers and acquisitions, accounting for roughly one-fifth of global deal activity in the sector.

But the Peregrino story is unique because the process pitted three of China’s largest oil companies against each other in heated rounds of bidding – a scenario that is a harbinger of Chinese oil majors expanding their hunt for assets overseas.