Chinese oil giant Sinopec on Wednesday became the first Asian group to acquire a stake in Qatar's project to expand the Northeast Field, the world's largest natural gas field, Doha reported.

China is Qatar's largest LNG customer and one of the world's largest energy importers. Last year, Sinopec signed a 27-year import agreement with Qatar, which it said was the longest ever in the natural gas industry.

Qatar had launched the $28.75 billion expansion project, which would boost annual gas production growth from 77 million tons annually to 110 million by 2027.

The state-owned Qatar Energy Company said in a statement that it will transfer to China Petrochemical Corporation (Sinopec) a share "of 5 percent of the equivalent of one production line of the project with a capacity of 8 million tons annually, while maintaining the shares of other partners without change."

The Qatari company did not specify the value of the deal.

The French Total, the British Shell, the Italian Eni and the American ConocoPhillips own larger stakes in the North East field.

In a speech during the signing ceremony, Minister of State for Energy Affairs Saad bin Sherida Al-Kaabi said, "Today's event highlights Qatar Energy's commitment to strengthening its relations with major LNG consumers."

He added that Qatar would like to give preference to "long-term strategic partnerships and achieve alignment of interests with partners with global capabilities from China, represented by Sinopec here today."

For his part, Chairman of the Board of Directors of "Sinopec" Ma Yong-xing said, according to a statement by "Qatar Energy" that this cooperation will help "improve the structure of energy consumption in China and enhance the security, stability and reliability of clean energy supply."