China Sinopec Corp is set to renew a crude supply deal with Libya for 2010 to lift close to 6 million barrels of crude each month, trading and refinery sources said, a volume sharply up from early this year.

Sinopec started to raise crude imports from Libya in recent months to 5-6 million barrels a month to make up for supply cuts from key exporters such as Saudi Arabia, as the top Asian refiner opened new refining units this year to meet recovering Chinese fuel demand, said one trader.

The volume would be three times the average import rate recorded in the first quarter of this year and also in 2008 at some 64,000 barrels per day, as reported by official Chinese customs data.

"OPEC is cutting back on supplies, some of which are exactly the grades we want to have...And the narrowing Dubai-Brent spread provides a good window to take more sweeter grades," said a source close to Sinopec's crude trading operations.

Under OPEC production cuts, top supplier Saudi Arabia has scaled back mostly heavy grades that Chinese refiners deemed more economic to process, forcing firms to hunt for alternative grades, Chinese traders have said.

China, the world's second-largest oil consumer, has been importing a record amount of crude in recent months to feed record refinery runs, leading its implied oil demand to quicken to 12.5 percent last month in its fastest growth in over 3 years. "As China's refinery throughput is rising overall, it's necessary to broaden out the supply sources and increase the volumes," said a refining official.

A second trader said Unipec, Sinopec's trading vehicle, has a term contract with National Oil Corp of Libya from at least six years ago. Now a regular lifter, Sinopec has been taking sweet grades such as Es Sider and Sarir, grades in middle distillates such as diesel.

Chinese customs data last Monday showed China's Libyan crude buys surged to a rare high of 806,632 tonnes in September, or close to 200,000 bpd, bringing the total imports from Libya by more than a third to 3.95 million tonnes in the first nine months.